Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery – Important For Every Business and Organisation
Managing Business operations in current times is a big challenge. Apart from having to keep looking at the bottom lines and market shares, the managements have another major are to be concerned about which is to continually keep assessing the risk to the business from all quarters and build Disaster Recovery plan in place. It […]
Understanding the Confidence Interval
The confidence interval is a central concept of hypothesis testing. Although understanding its mathematical and statistical meaning is beyond the scope of this module, one needs to have a fair idea of the concept. Hence, a brief introduction of the confidence interval that is essential for the Six Sigma project team to understand is as […]
Cultural Aspects of Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions
How Culture Impacts Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions With the advent of globalization, it has become common for western multinationals to indulge in mergers and acquisitions with companies in the emerging markets. The process of entering those markets is usually through the Greenfield route that entails huge investments and takes time as the plants and […]
Six Sigma Project Team Members
The actual work done in a Six Sigma project is done by the members involved. The Project Lead, Finance Certifier, Project Coach are all planning and enabling the team members to work in some way. Since the Project Team is usually a heterogeneous mix of people from different departments, there is no uniformity in the […]
How Genuine is China’s Growth Story?
The Chinese economy has received a lot of positive press in the past two decades. The rapid economic growth that China has registered is being touted as an economic miracle. It is incredible how China rose from being a desolate third world country to being the second largest economy in the world. However, the Chinese […]
As mentioned in the earlier articles, Six Sigma helps the organization develop at various levels viz. operational, tactical and strategic. While the operational and tactical goals of cost reduction and increased customer satisfaction are well understood and appreciated, the strategic intent behind Six Sigma is not well recognized. It is the pivotal factor, however in the success or failure of any Six Sigma initiative in the organization. Here is an explanation of the same:
When Six Sigma was introduced by Motorola, it became a strategic advantage for them. Since, not many of their competitors had the efficiency of Six Sigma tools, they were leading these corporations and the marketplace. However, with the passage of time, every major corporation on the planet has developed a Six Sigma program. Efficiency is now the name of the game. Hence, from a strategic standpoint, there are now Six Sigma programs competing against other Six Sigma programs and the better ones win!
Over the course of time, there have been numerous studies that have been conducted about the efficiency of these Six Sigma programs. It has been found out that companies that follow Six Sigma projects sporadically do not stand to gain as much from it as do companies that have a well co-ordinated effort. Today’s marketplace requires using Six Sigma processes to execute the companywide strategies.
An organization that is truly dedicated to Six Sigma philosophy will find many and varied projects that can be executed. Even an already Six Sigma organization needs to be developed over time. This is because technological changes unleash better ways of doing work and the organization must continuously adapt.
Hence, the challenge lies in prioritizing between the different Six Sigma projects and executing the correct ones. Projects must be checked for strategic fit i.e. how do they help meet the long term goal of the organization in question.
Example: A company like Facebook that relies on intimate knowledge of its customers to place ads, must execute Six Sigma projects related to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) first and then if resources are left must consider alternative projects. Facebook would not want to be operationally efficient at the cost of being misdirected from its long term strategy.
It is for this reason that Six Sigma has been tied up with a process called Hoshin Kanri by the Japanese. Roughly translated into English, it means management of direction. Six Sigma efforts, therefore need to be well directed.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
The Cost of Poorly Performing Processes – Need for Six Sigma
February 12, 2025
