ABSTRACT
Philip Crosby (Crosby, 1979) famously made the point that 'quality is free' - whatever the costs of quality assurance, they are always less than the cost of failure in terms of lost reputation, loss of repeat custom and rectification of faults or errors. Until corporate managers believed Crosby's mantra - indeed, until they felt it, hard, in lost market share, lost reputation, lost jobs, lost bonuses, collapsing stock prices and business failure - investment in quality remained peripheral. When the messages of quality were heard using the language of capitalism - profits, bonuses, stock prices - then quality became centre-stage. Today, quality management expenditure is not seen as an option. It is not even a differential advantage any more. If you don't have quality assured products and services, you are out of the game. If you do, you are in the game, and you can start playing it.
