Question

Discuss why a small company that provides only services, not products, could benefit from the concepts known as Six Sigma or Lean.

Answer 1

A small company that provides only services will stand to benefit a lot from the implementation of concepts known as Six Sigma and Lean. The application and use of Six Sigma in the small service company will enable the company to become more customer oriented. For the small service company the critical factors will be parameters of quality and efficiency of its services. This can be achieved by focusing on flow of information and interaction with customers. What Six Sigma does is that it transforms the processes of these flows and hence it leads to quality results. Six Sigma will enable this small service company to modify the element of human performance in its service environment and it will focus on the opinions and decisions being made by people. All these will lead to a development of process focus within the small service company and when this company shifts from task focus to process focus, thanks to Six Sigma, it will witness a significant improvement in its quality and efficiency.

Besides driving customer focus Six Sigma will also help the small service company to generate sustained improvement as robust business processes are developed and implemented. It will also help the small service company to even design and develop new service offerings in future as well. Innovation culture within this company will become more thriving and vibrant and all processes and operations will become well oiled.