Title: Quality function deployment technique for banking the unbanked: a case study in Karnataka

Authors: G.S. Vijaya; P. Divya Prabhu

Addresses: College of Business Administration, Al Yamamah University, Riyadh, 11512, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ' MPM GFGC Karkala, Gundyadka Road, Kabettu, Udupi National Highway, Karkala, Udupi, Karnataka 574104, India; JAIN (Deemed to be University), J.P. Nagar, 6th Phase, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560078, India

Abstract: Financial inclusion is a global issue that the Indian government has been striving to achieve in the last five years. Accessibility and ease of banking services in remote villages is one of the requirements to achieve it. The measure taken by the banks has failed miserably owing to complex and heterogeneous demographics of the country - especially the cultural and lifestyle difference between urban and rural masses. To explore the expectations of rural India and to find out the exact needs of the rural banking and its prospects, this paper has studied the possibilities of implementing quality function deployment in banking services which is rarely done in India. The paper explains how precisely the voice of the rural customer has been captured using quality function deployment matrix. The results of the study have evidenced that this tool can be tested, used, and extended for various service-oriented organisations that include banking.

Keywords: financial inclusion; quality function deployment; QFD; rural banking; services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2021.119762

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2021 Vol.34 No.3, pp.363 - 378

Received: 28 Jan 2020
Accepted: 04 Jun 2020
Published online: 20 Dec 2021 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article