Effective School Management

Internal and external customers and suppliers
TQM defines our ‘customer’ as ‘anyone who expects or receives a service
from us’ and our ‘supplier’ as ‘anyone from whom we receive or expect a
service’. Customers and suppliers may therefore be those whom we normally
consider as such – i.e. people ‘external’ to our own organization. However,
they may also be people within the same organization. Thus if the head expects
a member of staff to produce a report, the head is the customer and the member
of staff the supplier. Conversely, if the member of staff requires some
information from the head in order to produce the report, the customer–
supplier roles are reversed as regards that piece of information.
In a ‘quality’ organization it is, of course, expected that the ‘supplier’,
whether member of staff or head, will endeavour to meet or exceed the
expectations of the ‘customer’. However, the next principle also applies.