A famous Luganda proverb says that ‘Atanayitayita, Yatenda Nyina Okufumba’. This when directly translated in to English means that one who hasn’t travelled, is one who praises their mother as the best cook.
While this proverb opens a debate on whether my mother is a better cook than yours and vice versa, it nonetheless maintains one major fact; mothers/women are the best cooks everywhere you go.
Further, different studies and observations reveal one major truth; women pay more attention to details.
For instance, a 2017 article by Rebecca Shambaugh, the founder of Women in Leadership and Learning (WILL) noted that “Women tend to absorb more information through their senses and store more of it in the brain for other uses than men do. Therefore, women generally have more interest in details and pay more attention to them than men do.”
As such, it is not by mistake that Hariss International Limited; a leading manufacturer of food and beverages such as Riham Biscuits, Riham Water, Riham Soft Drinks, Oner Fruit Juice and Rockboom Energy Drink has women at the heart of its Products Quality Assurance.
For the record, 55 (52%) of its 106 staff in the Quality Assurance department are women who spend each and every day researching and discussing numerous ways of improving the quality system thus providing Quality and Safe products to the consumers.
On Wikipedia, Quality assurance (QA) is defined as “a way of preventing mistakes and defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering products or services to customers. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 further defines this as “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled”.
To meet the ever growing product quality expectations from customers, Hariss International practices a principle of “Quality First, Quality Always” with women playing a key role as Quality Managers, Assistants and Supervisors.
This women-centric strategyhas not only guaranteed continuous adherence to local and global quality requirements of products but has also over the years seen Hariss International attracting and retaining millions of customers plus receiving several Quality Awards including the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) Award for Best Beverage Company.
It goes without saying that even though Hariss International was founded by men; women have played and continue to play a pivotal role in its continuous growth. They have chosen to challenge themselves and their male peers to deliver better quality products and thus elevate Hariss International to higher heights.
