Why call it Financial Services?
While for over two decades Six Sigma has become synonymous with Quality in manufacturing, it has only been in the past 5-7 years that the methodology has made its way to the financial services sector. For all the financial institutions who have announced a Six Sigma deployment there have been nothing but rave reviews and millions of dollars saved. But for those still in “discovery” mode, this can be a journey filled with confusion and more importantly, risk.
Today, there is more misinformation about this unique Quality platform than there is accurate and reliable anecdote. Until recently, Financial Services Six Sigma was being clumped under Services Six Sigma – implying that it did not warrant its own categorization. How can airlines or retailing have the same operational issues as banking or insurance? For the most part they don’t, which then begs the question:
How can one think that they would use the same exact tool kit to resolve sector-specific problems?
This brings us to the main objectives of this blog – one that we intentionally called Financial Services Six Sigma:
- Bring clarity and understanding on how and why Financial Services Six Sigma is different from other Six Sigma platforms
- Share best practices from the industry as a lot of the challenges are common and plague most in the industry
- Discuss recent, industry specific trends as it pertains to Quality
Our central belief is that the more we demystify this iteration of Six Sigma the more people and institutions will embrace it – improving returns to shareholders, employees and the organization. So here is what we ask of you, our readers: in order to make this a real value add source of information, get involved, provide feedback and raise issues.
Sheila Shaffie & Shahbaz Shahbazi - ProcessArc, Inc.
