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You?re interested!

Great, we hoped you would be, before we tell you any more we?d like to invite you to compare how you run your business, with the diagram below, it should reflect what normally happens in your organisation.

A product is designed in marketing and flows through operations, through to after sales and support.

Business Departments

(The dashed lines indicate the different functions that often exist, sometimes marketing and sales are in the same area. The dotted lines indicate feedback loops that may or may not be in place.)

Now think about how do YOU make a decision to buy or recommend, is it on price or service alone?

Think about this for a minute;

You probably use a mix of;   

    ? How easy is it to buy the product or service?
    ? What features does it have?
    ? How long will it last? (quality)
    ? What image does it portray (about me)?
    ? What after sales support will I get?
    ? What is the returns policy?
    ? What is the price?

A mix of outputs from all the departments shown in the diagram.

If you think about these things when purchasing, then so do your customers!

Customer experience and decision to purchase would appear to be a function of all of parts of your organisation?

When someone asks your opinion on the last meal you had out, the price will only form part of it. The quality of the ingredients and the cooking may be mentioned, the warmth of the greeting, the speed of service (too fast, too slow, just right), the list of ?blackboard? specials they offer, the deserts you couldn't quite fit in, the favourite wine on the wine list and yes you may mention the price but in the context of everything else and this combination of product/service features and prices helps you to decide on the value of the experience.

The price may dictate how frequently you purchase, low and high price products can equally provide high or low value.

If you?re still not sure then consider this; how can Primark happily co-exist on the high streets next to John Lewis, Whistles, Marks & Spencer, and Next?  They all sell clothes, all provide value to their customers but all have different propositions for which different consumers will purchase from, for different reasons, at different times.

Think about the diagram again!

Now how do you improve the departments?

 v Purchase a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for sales staff to record all their customer contacts on ? allowing marketing to ?profile? these customers.

v Buy a marketing system to allow marketing to conduct campaigns faster.

v Invest in industry shows to demonstrate your latest product/service.

v Send sales staff away on training course.

v Re-brand your products or come up with a new logo!

v Add new ?value-add? product features.

v Reduce costs to make the product/service more attractive.

v Invest in newer faster processing equipment for operations.

v Invest in a new recording system to collect data on the operations division.

v Set up new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the service elements.

v Create a "New Product Development" Process 

v Introduce a new reward scheme for sales or service staff.

Each of these improvements will have been done independently in departments, after all each of the departments will have its own budgets, targets and KPIs etc.

(You may well have tried some of the above  and had some success over the short to medium term.)

We've established that customers (and You) buy and recommend products and services based on a mix of criteria;

criteria that are owned by different departments!

QUESTION?

How do you measure the impact the ?improvements? in one department have elsewhere?

If you are similar to the organisations we've worked with and researched then your departments only look to what they can influence, impacts elsewhere aren't measured.
If you want to read about the impacts that "improvements" can have in other departments then read the examples below, for

• An "improvement" in one department that caused costs to rise and created customer service problems - CLICK HERE

• An "improvement" that ignored customers and caused sales to fall - CLICK HERE

• An "improvement" target which failed to meet customer needs but raised costs - CLICK HERE

We promised to let you in one the Principles and Tools which have been behind sustained revenue driving, customer focussed, continuous improvement and we promise they?re on the way! 

If you agreed with our diagram, then you've seen that products and services follow a ?flow? across the departments in an organisation.

We've also shown that customers buy based on various criteria, criteria owned by more than one department!  

Why then do organisations measure and try to improve each department in isolation when customers buy the result of the "Product Flow" from the organisation?

We researched this question and after finding the answer we then set ourselves another challenge.

How do you create, measure and improve "Product Flow" ("the sum of the parts") in an organisation?

If you think you already manage by "Product Flow" then think about this one question?.

 ?.Do you measure the time it takes from thinking about conduct a sales campaign, the initial analysis, the product design, the marketing collateral production through to signing up and retaining the customers?

If so, BY HOW MUCH HAVE YOU IMPROVED IT IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS?

We promised we?d fill in the blanks of the quote from the first page, as this gives you an insight into the principles we are using.

Remember these principles helped;

• One business to grow at 23% per year
• One business to overtake its' rivals and become 50% larger in 5 years
• One business to sell the same number of units at its' competitors but at greatly increased profitability
• One business to reduce costs whilst improving customer service, even with only 8 staff!

and here it is

?Lean thinking has been an enormous influence on my business thinking. It shows you how you can fundamentally transform your business?

 Sir Terry Leahy, Chairman and Chief Executive, Tesco PLC

Oh and if you?ve come across Lean (or Six Sigma as it is sometime referred to) and think it only applies to operational departments and nowhere else then read on.

You?ll find out about how ?lean principles? MUST be used in marketing, sales, accounting and service, alongside the traditional applications in operations and distribution environments to ensure that improvements are valued and sustained. 

 Resq MR provide expertise in providing "lean thinking" tools that can be deployed in improving finance, marketing and sales functions.

We believe, from our experience in improvement management that that real organisation improvement and progress can only be achieved by;

• ensuring that the customer is at the HEART of all the functions (Lean Marketing)

• recognising which parts of the product & service customers REALLY value (Lean Marketing & Lean Sales)

• linking process improvements (traditional Lean & Six Sigma) in operations & distribution functions with improvements to marketing, sales, finance and HR.

• accounting systems need to reflect the FULL financial impact of improvements (Lean Accounting)
  

resQ MR help You in adopting the

FIVE LEAN PRINCIPLES

resQ use the ?Lean Principles? to work with you to;

?   understand the value Your (end) customers place on Your total solutions* ? improve your knowledge of what customers actually value from you. (Lean Marketing & Sales)

?   understand how to identify and eliminate all the activities, steps and actions in Your organisation that don?t add value in providing the solutions ? remove wasted effort, ?transport?, wasted time, repetitive processes, rejects, re-work, QC, wip, etc regardless of which department they occur in. (traditional Lean and Six Sigma)   

?   understand how to build the value adding activities, steps and actions that remain, around the solutions You want to deliver to Your customers ? increase the ?speed and responsiveness? of your organisation, to meet demands of  your market. (Lean Marketing and Sales)

?   understand how to provide solutions to Your customers as they demand, removing the need to rely on forecasts ? only commit resources to solutions that can be sold in the near term. (Lean Sales and Marketing)

?   understand how to embed transparent management processes which allow YOU to continually improve your marketing, processes, solutions, pricing & service  ? understand the improvement made so far and strive to continuously improve your organisation (Lean Accounting)

solutions* - your customers don?t actually buy products or services, they purchase solutions to their problems. This could be the problem of where to store their wages between pay-days ? current account, or getting at cash when the banks are closed ? ATMs.

CLICK HERE to read about "Lean Accounting"

CLICK HERE to read about "Lean Marketing & Sales"

Who else uses traditional ?Lean Thinking??

Many manufacturing and distribution companies use "lean" and Six Sigma techniques in their operational areas, companies such as Toyota, Honda, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberley Clark, Caterpillar, GE, IBM, Dell and Nike.

And in case you weren't aware companies outside of the manufacturing sector such as , Tesco, NHS, BAA, & O2 etc all employ lean and Six Sigma personnel and techniques in improving operations, something we can assist you with as well.

All the ?Big Four? High Street retail banks employ either directly or through contracting ?lean consultants?. A significant number of investment banks and insurance companies also use ?lean consultants?.  However the majority of these ?consultants? are focussed on the operations (back office & processing) parts of the business.

How successful have "Lean Accounting" and "Lean Marketing" been?

Where we have used these principles they have proved extremely positive both in establishing and embedding improvement programmes and changing the culture or organisations.  Companies who have been following these principles for sometime are reluctant to share or publish their practices, they are the main drivers behind growth. Through our improvement experiences in marketing, operations, sales and finance departments we have been able to understand these drivers.

If you want to read about the success of true "lean" then visit the pages below;

IMPROVEMENTS CLEAN UP!

SHOPPING FOR IMPROVEMENT!

DRIVING TO IMPROVEMENT!

10* IMPROVEMENT!

?There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.?  ~Peter F. Drucker

If ?Lean Thinking? is about understanding where in the organisation you add value to the customer, then anywhere is the simple answer.

If you start at the first principle, which is

?Understand what value Your (end) customers place on Your total solutions?

?Who owns the understanding of the customer in your organisation?

?Who produces the reports into customer requirements, the reports on customer behaviour?

Marketing seems the logical place for any lean project to start. Did it start here for you?

And if we jump to the last principle

?Understand how to embed transparent management processes which allow YOU to continually improve your processes, solutions, pricing?

If all the principles are about ?product flow? and maximising value for the customer then how will you allow for making decisions that maximise value for the customer and the business but are not the optimum for specific department?

Now normally we find that the accounting or financial departments are responsible for reporting results, particularly improvements, so it seems logical to us that accounting must appreciate how to apply lean principles. Principles that allow departments to take sub-optimal decisions that actually lead to optimal decisions for the company. 

So now we've  told you what we've found from our experience in improvement management; that that real organisation improvement and progress can only be achieved by

implementing Lean Principles (Accounting, Marketing & Sales) in line with the traditional application of lean principles in operational areas.

Oh the tools? Well at the last count we have access to over 70 of these, which we deploy as and when we see fit ? our experience guides us on this. You?ll forgive us if we don?t go into details here and now.

Feel free to visit lean marketing and lean accounting for our guides on some the simple tools that can be deployed in under an hour!