Kaizen is an essential component of the lean management toolkit. It is generally used to refer to the continuous incremental improvement of an activity or process with the goal of increasing value, eliminating waste, and striving towards perfection. But Kaizen is not just associated with continuous improvement.
Focused Kaizen - also known as Kaizen Events, or Kaizen Blitzes, take place over the scope of a few days, bring together key team members, and can be highly effective in accelerating the adoption of lean thinking throughout an organisation.
We often use Kaizen Events to help kick-start the process of applying lean thinking to a client’s sales and marketing activities. These events typically follow the initial discovery phase and precede a transformational or change management programme that targets the progressive elimination of the most significant sources of waste.
Running a kaizen event...
These Kaizen Events bring together subject matter experts from the sales, marketing and other customer facing functions for an intensive workshop typically lasting 2-4 days. Successful events have the following attributes:
- They draw together people from across the organisation, from multiple levels and include both leaders and followers
- They bring practical, hands-on experience of the current state of the organisation’s interaction with its prospects and customers
- They encourage contributions from both the front-line employees and "back office" support functions
- They involve a manageable number of individuals (4-8 is most common, though up to 12 is possible)
Sales kaizen dynamics...
Successful kaizen events establish a team dynamic in which there is balanced participation by all team members. They focus on the process, not the people, encourage open participation, crate a real sense of contribution and involvement and last but not least, they are fun to be involved in.
Experienced, preferably external, facilitation is another key factor - as is choosing the appropriate scope, choice of topic and frame of reference for the event.
Here's how we might be able to help...
Achieving sales and marketing alignment is particularly important to any organisation that is trying to achieve a step-function improvement in marketing effectiveness or sales productivity, to out-perform strong competitors, or to successfully launch new products or enter new markets.
We've been able to help a growing number of B2B organisations to realise their ambitions by diagnosing and dealing with the constraints that have been holding them back. We may be able to help your company achieve the same. You can learn more about our approach by browsing this website.
When you are ready, please complete our contact form, drop us a line at info@inflexion-point.com or call us on +44 (0) 845 519 0295.
We look forward to finding out more about what you are trying to achieve, to sharing some ideas - and to helping you achieve the benefits of alignment throughout your sales and marketing organisation.