COE Talk

New undertakings or experiences are always challenging at first. This is no different when Schenker Singapore (Pte) Ltd, a transportation & logistics company, decides to embark on something new like Lean Six Sigma. It might seem to be even more demanding at the outset since the number of 3rd party logistics providers rising to this challenge is very limited. Best practices in this industry are not widely spread and hard to come by. …more

A “Moment of Truth” is the moment that the company interfaces with the buyer. Careful product development, successful marketing and perfect product preparation can easily be shattered by small misfortunes during the moment of truth.

Unfortunately, in a restaurant you have a series of these moments, all of which are able to shape the impression of the experience dramatically. Often, this experience is much more important than the price or even the food itself. The later in the service delivery the Moment of Truth turns bad, the less time remains for a remedy. If the remedy is not applied on the spot, the chance may be gone forever - together with the customer. …more

A couple of months ago, I was having lunch with the Chairman of a medium-sized contract manufacturing company in Singapore. When we made the appointment, we agreed to meet at a posh club in the centre of the city-state. After arriving there I found myself in the middle of his management team. He brought MD and CFO along.

As they explained they just came back from their annual study trip. This year’s topic for the study was about Strategy Deployment, presented by a well known Harvard Professor in Boston/MA. They found the lesson learnt impressive enough to try inviting this Professor to Singapore to the benefit of their staff. As they mentioned, every year they visit one of the think-tanks to keep track of new developments in modern business management. As they emphasised, this has brought great benefits to their organisation. …more

Organisations have seen the powerful impact on the effectiveness of executives who retain external executive or utilise internal business coaches. They are also beginning to connect-the-dots and extrapolate the incredible power of an organisation whose capacity for growth and change is enhanced through the systematic practice of coaching. …more

Six Sigma has been developed 20 years ago and fine-tuned by many companies since then. However, there is no ISO standard or something similar guiding the deployment or regulating the certification of the key players, Green Belts or Black Belts. There is only one key requirement that helps distinguishing between success and failure: the business result.
The by far easiest task in the journey to deploy Six Sigma or similarly Lean Six Sigma is the training of Green Belts and Black Belts. Many training companies have discovered this gold mine and produce hundreds of Belts every year. For small money, nearly everyone can attend twenty 3-hour evening sessions led by trainers who have never run any project to become a Green Belt including certificate. Taking this certificate, attaching it to the CV and going for the next job interview is a question of days. …more

An uncertain labour market coupled with a rapidly changing marketplace creates the need for organisations to proactively plan for expected and unexpected shifts in business demand and talent supply. Furthermore, the business implications of the aging workforce position human capital planning as an essential element of comprehensive business planning. However, many organisations are only beginning to see the value of such planning and may be at a disadvantage in the coming years without building a structured planning process that ties human capital strategies to business goals.
Workforce planning allows organisations to better meet the challenges of a rapidly changing economy. By using business strategy to align shifts in demand with the existing and future supply of human capital, organisations optimise the workforce to meet business goals, increase market share, and improve employee engagement.
This article describes the workforce planning approach and illustrates the strategic alignment of workforce planning. …more

Very often we draw conclusions and make decisions based on a limited perspective on data only: we look at means and evaluate yield and defects. Some simple yet powerful tools can help to make much more out of the data available.
The first three steps of any data analysis shall be: Plot the Data, Plot the Data, Plot the Data… more

Coaching is a powerful style of leadership for developing people and enhancing business performance. With the rapid changes at workplaces, keeping employees’ committed and motivated during tough economic times seems like a tall task, especially after downsizing or programme cutbacks. It is evident that the very survival and success of any organization depends on the human capital: people are highly knowledgeable, versatile, innovative and mobile. Their skills and talents are the currency of competitiveness, and companies who hope to retain their services need to recognize that these individuals expect greater personal choice, autonomy and an active voice in the management of their workplace.
The days of the command-and-control style of leadership are long over. Leaders are required to engage the energy and thoughts of their teams in order to make them commit totally to a given course of action. The process of coaching is on-going and lifelong as learning is one of the few activities that one must frequently be engaged in as leaders sustain competitiveness through people development. …more

How do we know if receivables are well managed to terms? Are we performing at our best? What if we are the best in industry according to external benchmarks? How may we then do better or is it possible at all? Credit managers often face these questions in the never-ending quest to collect to terms and to drive down terms where possible. An analysis of the customer master is requisite to answering these questions as well as to enable one aspect of credit term optimisation. …more

“Don’t use Six Sigma to tackle special cause variation!” is one of the common phrases being repeated by Lean Six Sigma coaches and a very important recommendation for the management, too. The Six Sigma methodology is indeed targeting variation that is an inherent part of the process – common cause variation - that has been expected and tolerated due to its unknown and supposedly complex root causes.
Understanding this variation and analysing the real root causes before implementing improvements is a fundamental pillar of the methodology and driver for its success. Collecting data over time and going through the project work tool by tool take time - normally some month, sometimes more than half a year. This is time we cannot effort to invest in case that something unexpected, something special jeopardises our process and its output, endangers our employees or compromises our relationship with our clients. …more