University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Strategic Six Sigma
Book

Strategic Six Sigma

Best Practices From The Executive Suite

Dick Smith, Jerry Blakeslee and Richard Koonce
Wiley, 2002
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Dick Smith, Jerry Blakeslee and Richard Koonce demonstrate that the Six Sigma methodology can and should be applied to the highest levels of strategic planning. The authors illustrate how the rigors of Six Sigma can improve your performance in terms of overall strategy, growth and customer satisfaction in the same way that it streamlines operations on a production floor. getAbstract.com strongly recommends this book to business leaders, executives and managers, all of whom will benefit from its hands-on advice for integrating the tenets of Six Sigma into corporate strategy.

Summary

The Sixth Business Sense

In the mid-1980s, in the bustling manufacturing days of the Motorola Company, an idea was born. It was a new notion of how to cut costs, improve processes and accelerate product cycles. The new methodology that arose from this thinking, which relied on statistical measures of quality improvement, has become known across the business world by the phrase, Six Sigma. Six Sigma helps companies streamline the operational aspects of their businesses and improve their bottom lines. Today, however, business leaders are employing Six Sigma as a high-order leadership tool that enables them to:

  • Formulate new business strategies or implement existing ones;
  • Respond to increasingly challenging consumer expectations;
  • Facilitate mergers & acquisitions;
  • Promote the adoption and implementation of e-business ventures;
  • Accelerate revenue growth;
  • Drive innovation;
  • Push systemic and sustainable culture change;
  • Manage financial reporting and business risk.

Six Sigma has evolved into a vehicle for transforming organizations through the deployment and implementation of corporate strategies...

About the Authors

Dick Smith is the Partner-in-Charge of IBM Business Consulting Services Six Sigma Center of Excellence. He has over a dozen years experience in consulting on strategy, change management, and process consulting. Jerry Blakeslee was one of the architects of the IBM Business Consulting Services Six Sigma approach and serves as a Partner in the Six Sigma Center of Excellence, providing Six Sigma business transformation services to a broad range of organizations. Richard Koonce, the author of three previous books, is a senior contract consultant to IBM Business Consulting Services and a nationally recognized expert on job and workplace trends.

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