Six Sigma

Six Sigma – this is a statistical term that refers to processes that produce only 3.4 defects per million opportunities, ie: very few mistakes!

In reality, Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1981. (As of 2006, they had saved over $17billion from using Six Sigma techniques). Currently, it has widespread application in many different industry sectors and is used as a process management technique across different business functions, including commercial functions and finance.
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of outputs of any process (whether it is manufacturing, selling, finance or specific projects) by identifying the causes of “defects” within the process and removing them.  This should then lead to less variability, giving both businesses and customers greater comfort in the procedure and/or product.

Each Six Sigma project had quantified targets – these can be financial (cost reduction or profit increase) or whatever is critical to the customer of the process.
The Six Sigma expert at Orchard Growth Partners is Claire Dibb.

Projects that Claire has been involved with include:-

• income generation -  introduction of new product offerings across Europe
• cost reduction -  implementation of  a European marketing expenditure project which measured sales impact/response rates against dollars spent. This led to savings in marketing expenditure of several million dollars, with minimal impact on sales
• process management - pricing policy re-structuring,  giving a Pan-European consistent methodology in line with business profitability targets. As well as the benefits to the business (clear policies and procedures for the commercial functions,  enhanced margins) this also enabled quicker decision making for the client and enhanced communication with customers, which ultimately led to an increase in the customer base and volume growth

Claire would be happy to discuss the methodology in greater detail and how it could be applicable in your business.