Archive for DMAIC
Should work cells be used in Sales and Marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsCellular manufacturing is one of the most powerful lean tools. It will allow for smaller lot production, quality improvements, and shorter lead times and simplifies the implementation of pull. Typical manufacturing systems had the same machines all grouped together and as a result batch type manufacturing was developed. As manufacturers developed cellular systems, they found quality improved and smaller lot quantities could be efficiently handled. Many of the work cells were rearranged into U-shaped or L-shaped patterns. This allowed one worker to operate several machines which improve productivity. The benefits have been very well documented and applied to many industries.
Related Post with other pertinent links: (Why you should use Kanban in Marketing?)
Followers of my blog have seen how I use DMAIC principles in discussing the marketing funnel and the discussions about adding toll gates for identifying when prospects should move from one stage to the next. Inside the stages, we have different marketing programs that are taking place. But I really never talked about the personnel that were handling these programs. In most sales and marketing applications, you have marketing assigned by the duties they do and salespeople assigned to certain accounts. I think it might be interesting to consider what we have learned in U-shaped or L-shaped work cells.
Instead of the typical arrangement, what would prevent an organization of assigning the personnel and cross-training them within one of the marketing stages. This way they would become experts within the stage and be able to respond to the needs of a prospect better and more efficiently. Since they are handling the tools of the stage, that particular area would have a better chance of improving the methods utilized within it.
In recent times, quality has suffered in sales and marketing. Many times, the customer seems to be more of an expert than the salesperson calling on them. Other times experts have to be brought in and duplication of manpower takes place. Many companies have a sale’s closer; maybe sometimes a sales manager that would come in and have the power to close a prospect when ready. If you were doing that during each stage, the likelihood of passing on better qualified and more prospects may occur. Another consideration that someone may find fault with this type of thinking is geographic boundaries. However, I believe that excuse is seldom the case.
The key to your thinking should be in flow rather than function. Taking each individual stage and think about creating a work cell by defining the operations that take place within that stage. The number of resources within that stage will have to correlate to the number of prospects within the stage. It must be recognized that numbers don’t always work out perfectly or that certain talents may still have to be utilized in several different stages. But I believe that the quality of the interaction would increase with this type of system.
The goal in lean is continuous flow or as close to that as possible, while eliminating waste of waiting and a waste of overproduction. I believe that this type of arrangement would be an organizations first step in leveling sales volume. I’ll save that discussion for another blog post.
Do you think work cells can work in Sales and Marketing? Are they already?
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Bringing your Storyboard Alive!
A Little more on applying Little’s Law to Lean your Marketing!
Using DMAIC for your A3 Report in the Lean Marketing House
Why you should use Kanban in Marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsKanban is any signaling device that gives authorization for a supplying process to know what to produce, or for a material handler to know what items to replenish. For example: a physical paper card placed in a container of parts. When stored items are actually used, the Kanban card gets “freed” (perhaps it was in the bottom of the container), and gets put back into a Kanban stand where the Kanban “requests” are fulfilled. 
Kanban is a way of limiting work in process and the amount of new work that is introduced into the process. As a result, work would be pulled from the previous stage as work is completed and levels demand. It emphasizes throughput rather than numbers. If you have read my previous posts, you would recognize the emphasis I put on throughput and the need for this to be monitored in the sales and marketing process.
The Reasons for a Kanban can be summed up in these previous posts:
Improve your Marketing Cycle, Increase your Revenue : Speed is important in the buying process. Your total cycle time can be improved. However, it seldom can be done without more feedback loops in your system. Develop process blitzes to reduce these non-value times. Go to Gemba or the customer’s place of work and find out what happens during this time. See what is stopping them from moving forward. It may be an internal constraint within their company. However, the constraint may be yours. You may not be responding to the customer’s latest needs. Your ability to focus your resources on the customer needs may provide the overall clarity he needs this to make a more rapid decision.
Improve throughput, cut your customers in half!: In a manufacturing system cutting WIP just about always will increase throughput. Why? You end up working only on what is needed and when it is needed. You also will have less waste, less material to handle and fewer mistakes. Good things happen when you are not handling excessive amount of material. In a marketing system cutting the amount of customers in half works very much the same way. You end up working on what a customer truly needs and wants. Your marketing will become more personal, more direct, and fewer mistakes.
Using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel: Have you thought of using DMAIC as a way of defining your marketing funnel? We looked at Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control and utilized these basic principles to walk a customer through the marketing funnel. In other posts, I discussed the ability to create a shorter cycle time by decreasing the non-value time in between each of these stages. One of the methods of doing this is to have a strong call to action for a prospect to move from one stage to the next. However, how do you know if a customer is ready to move from one stage to the next?
What kind of questions would you ask at a tollgate?: In a recent post, using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel I went through the concept of using a tollgate in your marketing funnel. Below is a list of questions that might help general a few ideas that you may want to consider. (Review Post)
The essential points needed in a Kanban system are:
- Stock points
- Replenishment Signal
- Quick Feedback
- Frequent Replenishment
If you would consider the typical marketing cycle as a prospect moves from one stage to another, you imagine it as step by step process and certain events taking place within that stage. With a Kanban method or a tollgate you could have certain trigger points for each stage or even a phase within that stage allowing one marketing effort to pull from the previous. The method would also limit the number of prospects within that cycle so that the proper amount could be managed or more importantly satisfied! Or, you could have an unlimited supply of leads flowing into each stage? You probably wish you had the latter. However, which would prove more effective?
Photo Courtesy of Systems2win.
A Simple Exercise to Differentiate Yourself
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone tells you to differentiate but are you comfortable that you are different enough. A tool that I use to make a strong impact on a client is one that is from the book, The Chasm Companion: A Field Guide to Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (Revised)
The benefit your service/product is to the user:
A. Provide Modest Enhancements
B. Add substantial value
C. Gives dramatic productivity gains.
D. Changes the competitive field
The pain of obtaining the benefit to the user:
4. Significant reengineering, new systems
3. Major changes to existing systems
2. Modest changes to existing systems
1. Integrates with existing systems
When completing this of course the more opinion and arguments the better. You will have to create a consensus, however and a decision reached. Sometimes positioning the competitor’s products/service around yours can assist. Are more changes required, do they add less or more value? If you end up at square A4, no Gain with a lot of pain, you can probably throw the product/service away. It simply will not work. In fact A2 and A3 should probably cause the same reaction. The truth to the matter is that unless you are doing a startup, you probably end up in the twilight zone. The problem being in the twilight zone, according to author Geoffrey Moore is that these offerings will cause little market movement. In other words, they are not COMPELLING. The other areas follow this pattern:
- D4, you are in an early market category.
- D2/D3 is about market segmentation and making the pain a favorable trade-off to that group.
- C1/D1 means that your product can move to widespread adoption and you are ready for that transition.
- A1, B1 is being accepted in your target market and an easy solution.
This description is a take-off from the book but to fully understand you have to read the Crossing the Chasm
. It is a must read and still today it is one of most cited books in the innovation area. I have bought the book around 5 times. I keep giving it away.
However, the point to this entire exercise for me is differentiation relative to the gain and pain of the customer. It is an exercise that enables you to look at your product/service more objectively from your customer’s eyes. Are you really that different if all you are doing is complicating their life without making a significant gain? Another item it addresses is your market segmentation. Are you targeting a customer that your product/service causes little pain? If you are in the twilight zone, where are you headed? What will it take to move you to the outer perimeter? It is a simple answer make yourself more valuable by making the gain greater or the pain less!
Related Posts:
Evaluating your Marketing Funnel, Only Seven Levers matter
Lean Marketing, The Toyota Way
The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Define stage
