The International Foundation for Quality Management (IFQM) successfully concluded its second annual symposium in 2025, bringing together nearly 450 participants, including policymakers, industry leaders, global experts, and academia. The two-day event focused on the theme “Quality & Innovation to Make India Globally Competitive” and explored how India can strengthen its position in global value chains.
The discussions centered around challenges faced by MSMEs in adopting and sustaining a culture of quality, while also highlighting their potential to contribute significantly to sectors like IT, pharma, healthcare, education, automobiles, and electronics. Experts examined strategies for scaling innovation, improving access to quality healthcare and infrastructure, and driving excellence across industries.
Dr. Noriaki Kano stressed that “lasting innovation must be anchored in quality and continuous improvement.” He also announced training sessions on Total Quality Management (TQM) for MSMEs, including visits to the JUSE institute in Japan.
Soumitra Bhattacharya, CEO & Director, IFQM said, “We just concluded the IFQM Symposium, which to my mind is a remarkable step forward from where we started. A confluence of all stakeholders, nearly 450 of them – from policy makers to Business leaders from organizations both large and small, Leaders from the Academia consisting of Deans and professors from reputed educational institutions, students representing the future talent and many others who have India up in their minds. We all have a unified intention to carve out a path for India to be globally competitive. IFQM is fast evolving as an Industry led-Nation first movement, gaining pace and momentum by the day. The Symposium urged organizations to invest in the future, adopt Quality as a strategy, and thereby create value that makes India an economic super power, a place it richly deserves to be. The Symposium has fueled ambition, promise and confidence for IFQM to grow multifold, atleast 5X in the following year, with newer platforms, programs and projects that integrate these stakeholders, by adopting Digital as a force multiplier.”
Sessions also highlighted cross-disciplinary insights, including lessons from fine arts that can guide businesses in fostering empathy, collaboration, discipline, and mentorship.
Adding to the industry’s perspective, Surinder Singh, Advisor, Technology India Semiconductor Mission ISM, emphasized the role of industry in driving innovation, quality, and talent growth.
Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health, said, “The way forward is for employers to push employees to have health insurance partly funded in India. That must happen with the organised and unorganised sectors. He said that India could become the first country in the world to dissociate health care from wealth and prove that the nation’s or family’s wealth has nothing to do with the quality of health care its citizens will enjoy within the next decade.”
The symposium concluded with a strong call to action for India to embrace quality and innovation as the foundation of its global competitiveness and economic growth.
