CEOs today face mounting pressures to innovate; yet finding ways to actually enable innovation remains a challenge for many. Top companies with successful track records of innovation, however, have discovered one possible solution.

Lean Six Sigma, a relatively well-known approach for achieving operational excellence, can, as it turns out, do more than simply improve processes. It can help leaders discover innovation opportunities far beyond operations, enhance financial performance and create organizations that have an inherent inclination toward innovation.

In today’s marketplace, increased globalization, constant technological advances and other competitive pressures are accelerating the pace of change CEOs face. The resulting opportunities and threats have placed innovation near the top of CEOs’ priority lists. And yet, for many, innovation success has been sporadic at best.

Our research and experience shows that the right operations strategy can help companies make innovation a regular occurrence. Such a strategy, if focused not just on efficiency but also on growth, can serve as a foundation for innovation throughout an organization – far beyond operations to products, services, markets and even a company’s underlying business model. Simply put, this sort of strategy is not about doing things better; it is about doing better things.

As part of our analysis, we examined several leading companies that are doing just that. They have implemented operations strategies based on a relatively well-known management philosophy which we will call here Lean Six Sigma. It is also sometimes referred to as Six Sigma Lean. And at some of the companies we studied, leaders still label their initiatives as Six Sigma or 6 Sigma even though, from our perspective, they have moved beyond Six Sigma’s original definition and scope by incorporating Lean features as well. ...

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By George Byrne, Dave Lubowe and Amy Blitz

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
George Byrne, formerly Americas Leader, Lean Six Sigma.
Dave Lubowe, Global and Americas Operations Strategy Leader for IBM Global Business Services.
Amy Blitz, Strategy and Change Leader at the IBM Institute for Business Value.

About IBM Global Business Services
With business experts in more than 160 countries, IBM Global Business Services provides clients with deep business process and industry expertise across 17 industries, using innovation to identify, create and deliver value faster.

We draw on the full breadth of IBM capabilities, standing behind our advice to help clients innovate and implement solutions designed to deliver business outcomes with far-reaching impact and sustainable results.

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