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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators
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Executive Summary
Workforce representative organizations in the Netherlands are witnessing a decline in the number of
memberships for about 10 years. Under influence of ICT, the design of work is changing from a
centralized to a decentralized form. As a result, the function and role of representative organizations,
such as De Unie, are changing as well. In response, representative organizations are searching for,
and experimenting with new service concepts in order to recruit new members and increase the
position of the organization as well as the organization’s cash flow. Under influence of the
aforementioned forces, De Unie started to develop a new union concept that is more responsive to
the members’ contemporary needs. As a result, De Unie recently launched the first online union in
the Netherlands; “De Internetvakbond”.
The current research study serves to improve decision makers’ understanding of the demands of the
members, and offers objective knowledge about the key performance drivers of the online union.
Hence, it will provide De Unie direction to the ongoing process of designing an online union that
adapts to the demands of the changing workforce. By both identification of the most important
needs of the members, by collection of empirical data and; by translating the needs into appropriate
technical requirements.
This research starts with a literature review followed by exploratory research to the needs of the
members and the performance drivers of the online union. The present study applies the SERVQUAL
model to measure the quality of the services offered by the online union. By including Kano’s model
we were able to identify how well the different service attributes of the online union are satisfying
the needs of the members. By integrating the SERVQUAL and Kano model into the concept of the
House of Quality, we were able to translate the needs and requirements of the member into the
design process of the online union.
By exploratory research we identified five dimensions that are considered to determine the overall
performance of the online union; interaction, solidarity, information, safety and interaction.
Statistical analysis merged the dimensions interaction and solidarity and indicated a significant
positive relationship between tangibles and the overall performance of the online union. The House
of Quality indicated Digitalization to be the most important technical requirement in the ongoing
process of improvement and enables the online union to meet the widest collection of members’
needs. Digitalization in this case offers the online union possibilities for value-based pricing of
services, connect different parties in the network and enables interaction between the De Unie, it’s
members and third parties. From this perspective it increases the value of the online union.