Six Sigma Reference Feature: Introduction to Six Sigma for Marketing Processes

BNET gives a heads up of a whitepaper titled Introduction to Six Sigma for Marketing Processes, and provides a link to Informit.com.

Six Sigma for Marketing and Six Sigma for Sales are relatively new approaches to enable and sustain growth. They are part of the bright future offered by adapting Six Sigma to the growth arena. The linkage of Six Sigma for Marketing and Six Sigma for Sales tasks and tools to strategic, tactical, and operational processes is where the Six Sigma discipline adds measurable value to marketing and sales team performance.

Continue reading…

Filed under: Six Sigma References, Marketing, Processes, BNET, Informit.com

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Upcoming Lean & Six Sigma Conferences

Continuous improvement requires continuous learning. So, today, let me highlight the Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma conferences in the coming months.

On April 17, 2007, there is the 8th Annual Six Sigma Summit 2007 in UK. You will learn how to rate your market performance against fellow Six Sigma practitioners through onsite benchmarking programme; discover proven Six Sigma strategies; and learn from Europe’s award-winning Six Sigma projects .

The 3rd Annual Lean Six Sigma Summit in Chicago, USA will have workshops on April 24 & 27, and the summit from April 25 to 26. During the event, you will learn how Lean and Six Sigma drive business improvement in manufacturing, services and transactional environments.

From May 8 to 10, 2007, WCBF will host the 4th Annual Six Sigma in Financial Services Conference in New York. This conference will address the real challenges for leadership and senior executives who are striving to reduce their operational inefficiencies and maximize revenue in highly competitive markets.

On May 22-24 is the 4th Annual Six Sigma in Sales & Marketing Conference in Chicago, USA. You will learn how to implement Six Sigma to improve your sales process, develop a compliance and control plan for product development, and identify metrics to track marketing contribution on new product development.

The 8th Annual Asian Six Sigma Summit 2007 in Singapore is happening on June 4-7, 2007. With a focus on innovation, the event will teach you how to engage leadership commitment to extract faster results from Six Sigma, Innovation, & Lean Thinking.

For more upcoming Lean and Six Sigma conferences visit GoingToMeet.com. Or if you have upcoming events, you can add them to the site.

*Photo from Morguefile.com

Filed under: Manufacturing, Services, Lean Six Sigma, Finance, Training, Six Sigma References, Events/Announcements, Marketing, Sales

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Using Six Sigma for Customer Winback

You gain a customer, lose him, win him back or lose him completely. That is the business cycle, and that is the why for your customer relations system. In that cycle, it has been proven that winning back customers is far easier than gaining one.

However, your business focus shouldn’t be this alone. Rather, your business should devise a system that will tell you what your customers really need and want. Yet, you can’t do away with customers who go astray. There are many obvious reasons for that.

Let’s just say that you’re now on the task of winning back your customers. An article on iSixSigma says that you can use Six Sigma’s DMAIC for customer winback. Six Sigma being data driven and doing work by data gathering data, it can help you with the root-cause analysis of losing customers, in the first place. A root cause analysis starts with investigation. The Six Sigma methodology provides the structure as to how to understand the data gathered during investigation.

Based on the book Customer Winback: How to Recapture Lost Customers – and Keep Them Loyal by Jill Griffin and Michael W. Lowenstein, four steps have been identified as to how to go about the investigation. The article points where each step is in the DMAIC methodology. Here’s how it goes:

• Prepare: Determine what the organization knows and what is missing. (Six Sigma covers this within its Define phase.)
• Assemble: Identify unmet requirements, unheard complaints, priorities and areas of importance, and clearer insights. (Six Sigma addresses this portion in its Measure phase.)
• Comprehend: Having collected the information, determine with data models, regression, and statistical significance, areas that call for action and correction. (Six Sigma adds value during the Analyze phase.)
• Employ: Apply the conclusions to correct problems and improve quality and training. Expand support and resources, and establish recognitions and rewards to encourage member loyalty. (Six Sigma specifically targets this in the Improve and Control phases.)

Continue reading…

Source:
iSixSigma, “Customer Winback Concept Begs for Use of Six Sigma,” with link provided by Promax Consulting.

Filed under: Tools/Toolkits, Benefits and Savings, Services, Marketing, Sales

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Lean and Six Sigma Conferences @ GoingToMeet.com

Six Sigma projects couldn’t start without training. Training accounts for the most part of the Six Sigma initiatives. You train your people for Black Belts, Champions, or Green Belts.

Apart from these trainings, Six Sigma practitioners should also continue learning, and Six Sigma projects should also be regularly recognized. That is why IQPC or ISSSP and other Six Sigma training or consultancy groups hold workshops and conferences.

Below are Six Sigma conferences in the coming months.

For more conferences, check out GoingToMeet.com. Or if you have upcoming conferences, trade exhibits, or forums, visit GoingToMeet.com, and add your events there.

Update: You can also read this post on Article-Hangout.com.

Filed under: Manufacturing, Services, Lean Six Sigma, Finance, Training, Six Sigma References, Healthcare, Events/Announcements, Marketing, Sales

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WCBF’s Forthcoming Conferences and Summits

WCBF, the leading producer of Six Sigma conferences, is coming up with six conferences and summits.  

Each event promises to give every participant the most current and relevant information on Six Sigma deployments. Book a seat now.

5th Annual Six Sigma in Healthcare Conference, March 28-30, 2007, Las Vegas.

3rd Annual Lean Six Sigma Summit, April 24-27, 2007, Chicago.

4th Annual Six Sigma in Financial Services Conference, May 9-11, 2007, New York.

4th Annual Six Sigma in Sales & Marketing Conference, May 22-24, 2007, Chicago.

Six Sigma in Retail Conference, June 12-14, 2007.

3rd Annual Design for Six Sigma Conference, June 26-28, 2007, Chicago.

For more Six Sigma and other conferences, check out GoingToMeet.com.

Filed under: Lean Six Sigma, Finance, Healthcare, Events/Announcements, Marketing, Sales

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Increasing Software Market for Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma

ARC Group Advisory is seeing an increase in the software market for lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

According to the group’s study the nearly doubling software market by 2010 is due to the strong competitive pressures on manufacturers and successes with Continuous Improvement (CI) solutions. In fact, the CI market alone will see a strong compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7%.

ARC Research Director Ralph Rio pointed out that two the two high-growth areas will be electronic kanban and electronic value stream mapping. Continue reading…

*Photo credit: Morguefile.com

Filed under: Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, Software/Technology, Marketing

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Six Sigma Marketing at Cummins

Very few companies are implementing a wholistic approach to Six Sigma, that is adopting the methodology to its entire operations. Among the few is Cummins, a leading power that design, manufacture, distribute and service engines and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation systems.

To deploy Six Sigma in its entire operations is no mean feat for Cummins. The company keep clients in more than 160 countries through its network of 550 company-owned and independent distributor facilities and more than 5,000 dealer locations.

Operating a huge business such as this, Cummins really needs a methodology that will allow them to monitor their activities, particularly their marketing tasks. This led Cummins to adopt a software package to manage its marketing campaigns, called Aprimo.

Manufacturing Business Technology describes:

The Enterprise Marketing Management suite from Aprimo is a set of Web-based, hosted applications that allow tracking the status of all material associated with a marketing campaign from beginning to end. It also provides important benchmarks for the marketing group’s Six Sigma initiative.

The results include a 61% reduction in production cycle time, a drop in revisions by 78%, and creative development costs cut by 23%. Now the group averages about two revisions per piece, which is below its 2.5-revisions benchmark. Keeping copies of graphics and other marketing assets offsite is no longer necessary, resulting in an annual 75% savings on management fees paid to outside vendors.

Knowing the bloody work of making marketing campaigns from conceptualization phase to the execution, I think Aprimo is another technology that really works well with Six Sigma.

Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Manufacturing, Marketing

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