Understanding the Challenges

An innovative startup faces daunting challenged right out of the gate. According to a Forbes, 90% of all startups FAIL. Let that sink in for a moment. Nine out of ten startups will fail! That is a sobering fact for entrepreneurs when they are investing time and money into a new business. The fact is, new entrepreneurs need a cold, hard dose of reality when considering entering the realm of competition. Why those bold entrepreneurs continue to jump into the fire, despite all of these facts, is the challenge. An entrepreneur thrives on challenges, and it drives them to overcome opposition and fight to win. This competitive environment requires fledgling entrepreneurs work harder, smarter and use every possible competitive edge to survive. Six Sigma is that competitive advantage for entrepreneurs to become agile, and eventually successful.

The Innovative Startup Strategy

An innovative startup faces numerous challenges right out of the gate. The first and foremost is the competition. They are entering an arena where other entrepreneurs are successfully operating. Surfing the competitive hurdle requires that they can deliver a product or service that is of higher quality, more affordable and with more ease to the consumer in a timely manner. A new entrepreneur can compete at the levels by deploying a logical Six Sigma program. Differentiation by utilizing a robust Six Sigma strategy will provide significant agility with competing businesses. Embracing this strategy of continuous improvement creates an environment for innovation to blossom. Nurturing and encouraging that innovation pushes a startup forward, without spreading assets too thin.

Finding a Balance For Success

An innovative startup that reaches successful position have found balance in their position. Six Sigma strategies that are properly implemented will fuel innovation, balance asset allocation, and keep a focus on continuous quality improvement. Finding that balance and remaining agile in a continuously changing environment will keep an innovative startup out of that 90% segment that fails.

The post Innovative Startup: Take The Initiative With Six Sigma appeared first on 6sigma.

The Challenges of Business Aren’t Small

It is no secret that if you want your business to run effectively and efficiently, implementing Six Sigma methodology is the answer. While Six Sigma was orchestrated originally for the Fortune 500 companies, recent studies have shown that both small businesses and medium businesses can prosper as well.

With that being said, there is a caveat, which could easily be turned around. To paint the picture, let’s do some comparing.

First of all, both sizes of companies require the same exact procedures. Smaller businesses do require scaled down versions of manpower (according to respective size).

Basically, in large companies, top management sets the tone by taking the initiative, communicating with mid-management for the sole purpose of developing templates of specific tasks designed to improve efficiencies. All of this stays within the main objectives of the company.

A Scale of Size

The larger company has the resources to hire a Six Sigma Black Belt team that can take them through the DMAIC improvement cycle in order for the business to reach the specific goal. This is set to be achieved by a given period of time, usually 3-6 months.

After the goal is achieved, a mature organization using Six Sigma has 1% of their workforce in the Black Belt capacity ensuring all is being constantly implemented and monitored.

Small Business Rises to the Challenge

The situation is a lot different in a smaller company. Since financial resources usually aren’t as plentiful, company employees usually wear many hats and are more nimble. This can actually make team efforts easier, so there wouldn’t be a need to have a separate Six Sigma team to deploy changes.

Since the smaller businesses may choose not to have an onsite Black Belt to keep everyone on task, communication must be plentiful, and correct usage of Six Sigma methods and tactics must be implemented.

So for the small and medium size business, success can be large, as long as Six Sigma’s continuous, results driven, organizational development plan is at their helm.

Whether you’re interested in our Six Sigma courses or hiring a team, visit our website.

Learn more information about 6Sigma.com’s Lean Six Sigma training coursework, available as classroom, onsite, or online options.

The post Six Sigma: Small Business, Big Success appeared first on 6sigma.

General Electric saved over $320 million in costs after less than two years of implementing Six Sigma methodology. GE is still the 6th largest firm in the US and still going strong – it has never left the Fortune 500 List.

Are you running your business at optimal levels? While your business may not be the size of GE, you can borrow some of their strategies in running your own business.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation: say you have a small company of 20 employees. You hired these 20 employees because that is how many employees you thought you needed to make your company run smoothly and satisfy your client base.

Then, for some reason business is down slightly. You remember having some customer complaints: your thought was, “Well, you can’t please everyone all the time,” and went about your day. This happened a few times but you felt it wasn’t anything serious.

Now a few months have passed, and your business is down, so you layoff a few employees. Do you really feel that action is improving your business? You probably laid off good hardworking employees that could actually help you grow your business!

Learning where your business needs to improve and change can be determined through methodologies such as Six Sigma.

Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that when implemented will improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of your business at the same time. Your product, whether it be an actual product or service has to be at the top level of effectiveness; meaning you are producing a darn great product. If your business is running efficiently, your business should be profitable.

Start the New Year with a strong initiative towards success by making Six Sigma part of your business strategy.

Learn more information about 6Sigma.com’s Lean Six Sigma training coursework, available as classroom, onsite, or online options or contact us.

The post Six Sigma for the Fortune 500 Mindset appeared first on 6sigma.

These smart, savvy, and ambitious people are part of a new crop of entrepreneurs, differing from the self-employed of yesteryear. While many of these new small businesses may be one-man shops, their big mindset reflects an ambitious, modern attitude.

Businesses provide a service or product that will help the consumer, to make their life easier or better in some way. At the very core, businesses exist to make a profit. That profit will sustain the life of that company’s management and employees, and ultimately the life of the company itself. A company’s profits help pay taxes and keep the economy going, which helps mankind.

The size of the company does not matter. When it comes to Six Sigma, many people associate it with Fortune 500 companies, simply because they are so successful, but why not extend the same principles that make a Fortune 500 company successful and use those same principles for small businesses?

One of the main principles of Six Sigma, DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) helps guide the business improvement process. Before getting started, know what your goal is. Is it to get better customer service or cut production costs?

Here’s a brief overview of the DMAIC concept:

Define and Measure – Identify the problems to be solved. One must define specific projects that have these problems. This will set the stage to fix the problem in increments. In this phase, you are setting the groundwork for success, so identifying every little part of the whole and then zeroing in on the specifics is crucial. As you go along this phase, you must also pay close attention as to how much effort is given to each specific area.

Analyze: Here you use a problem-solving roadmap to figure out the non-important factors and concentrate on the root cause of said problem.

Improve and Control– In this phase, you’re combining the Six Sigma tools and methods used to come up with a said solution, then you are solidifying the improvements that you’ve achieved.

Simply put, Six Sigma is a structured methodology to improve any aspect of a business. With a little ingenuity, the Six Sigma methodology can be used on everything from raising kids to self-improvement. This method is structured, scientific, and proven.

There are very few sure things — the Six Sigma methodology might just be one of them! Learn more information about 6Sigma.com’s Lean Six Sigma training coursework, available as a Six sigma training, onsite, or Six Sigma online options.

The post Six Sigma and DMAIC: Perfect Principles for the Self-Employed appeared first on 6sigma.