The Conference Board, an international organization for senior executives, conducted a survey to analyze the effects of Total Quality Management (TQM) on businesses. The use of TQM is increasing, particularly in production industries and large companies. Its adoption tends to affect every level of an organization, but gradually, because of the dimensions of the task. Significant investments in training, work flow redesign, and reorganization are frequently necessary. TQM appears to represent a long term trend in management strategies. Most executives indicate that TQM has had a beneficial effect on their companies' performances. Techniques defined as TQM tend to vary from company to company. These variations appear to be related to the effectiveness of TQM.