This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Summary
Six Sigma for Marketing and Six Sigma for Sales are relatively new approaches to enable and sustain growth. They are part of the bright future offered by adapting Six Sigma to the growth arena. The linkage of Six Sigma for Marketing and Six Sigma for Sales tasks and tools to strategic, tactical, and operational processes is where the Six Sigma discipline adds measurable value to marketing and sales team performance. Marketing and sales professionals can custom-design what to do and when to do it to fit these three critical marketing process arenas to their organization or culture. This book's concepts can complement your company's unique marketing approach and infrastructure. Why? Because the most important goal is to communicate a common approach to manage risk and make sound, data-driven decisions as you seek to expand the company. An organization can take license to customize the methodology to fit existing processes, enhancing communication and adoption. A customized application of this book's concepts will work as long as the following are upheld: phase objectives (or requirements), the sequence, tools-tasks-deliverables combinations, and phase-gate reviews. Integrating these methods and concepts into your critical processes with adequate rigor applied to meet deliverable requirements at phase-gate reviews will lead to more predictable outcomes.
Before exploring the details of each strategic, tactical, and operational method for marketing and sales, let's examine two foundational topics that transcend these three areas. The first fundamental subject involves the criticality of reporting and tracking performance and risk. Chapter 2, "Measuring Marketing Performance and Risk Accrual Using Scorecards," introduces a system of scorecards that build on Six Sigma principles to measure marketing's use of tools, completion of tasks, and the resulting deliverables across the strategic, tactical, and operational processes. Chapter 3, "Six Sigma-Enabled Project Management in Marketing Processes," addresses the importance of project management. We suggest adding some Six Sigma tools to the traditional project management body of knowledge to better manage a project and its associated risk.