It's extensively accepted as business philosophy. Commonly used in the Automotive Industry, it was pioneered at Toyota then spread to other manufacturers such as Honda and Ford. They aimed to achieve customer satisfaction through increased quality of products and processes, where everybody is responsible for ensuring and improving the quality. It has been said that this keystone ideology is also part of marketing orientation where customer focus, continuous improvement and commitment are all important.



Implementing the TQM philosophy, organizations are visualised as a series of internal customers all responsible for ensuring the quality required by their next and the overall customer are met. Is it then necessary, for each business function to provide the relevant information regarding the quality of their step in the process, this approach suggests that instead of remaining as a single independent function that in fact marketing becomes a part of the management function of each area of the business. However, organizations adopting the TQM philosophy are continually improving processes and implementing quality plans but marketing is only used to assess the overall customer's needs.

The Relationship Marketing concept, is a move from traditional transaction marketing where often the customer interaction ends with the sale, to a relationship approach which involves identifying and satisfying the customers long term needs so they will return (Berry 1983, Gummesson 1987.

On the contrary Anderson and Narus have suggested that the traditional marketing should still be applied for certain products or situations for example; when supplying standard, generic products where costs associated with maintaining long term customer relationships and the current market can have a large adverse effect on profitability.

Total Relationship Management (TRM) is described as a philosophy born out of Relationship Marketing where all business relationships (internal and external such as suppliers, collaborators, bankers etc.) are managed and the customer requirements are reflected in these relations too. Optimising these relationships focuses on the productivity and profitability as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of satisfying the customer needs. This like TQM requires the commitment and involvement of all people within the organisation. Barthie and Sarkar also concluded relationship marketing is focused on the needs of the customer as well as quality also highlighting the need for a total or holist approach enabling the long-term relationships to be sustained, which they termed as Total Quality Marketing (TQMk).

Many people will recognize the term marketing mix and know the 4P's Gronroos suggests that the past focus on product and production or Scientific Management fostered this philosophy but many western firms have been noticing its lack of effectiveness as competition intensifies customers are increasingly expecting a more complete and better level of service with their products. To provide this total service an organization must only carryout the operations that create value for the customer removing any actions that don't, eradicating waste. The traditional business functions provide a particular service, which is only part of what the customer receives, therefore a customer focus would need to consider the complete package. Organizations should look at the process removing the functional barriers and enabling the work to flow.

Barthie and Sarkar described TQM as a change in focus from productivity to customer satisfaction, where the idea of built in quality is spread from operations to the wider functions of the organisation. While there has been a shift in marketing strategy from being transaction based to relationship focused. They also discussed that even though both philosophies focus on the needs of the customer there is an opportunity for these functions to remain separate. These separate functions have both developed tools for spreading the customer focus within the organisation, TQM by implementing measurable quality techniques and marketing by focusing on internal branding, but maintaining this focus can be a problem. Where Barthie and Sarkar (2002) suggest:

?using the principles of relationship marketing to operationalise TQM approach, and TQM to operationalise marketing internally in an organisation.?

This idea they define as Total Quality Marketing (TQMk). It is similar to what Zineldin defines as TRM approach. The TRM philosophy looks at the business interactions, to satisfy the customer as well as the productivity and profitability of the organisation. It aims to maintain the long-term relationships by continuously improving the 5Qs; Quality of product, Quality of processes, Quality of infrastructure, Quality of interaction, Quality of atmosphere, thus encompassing TQM in its philosophy and also applying tools used in TQM to achieve its aim.