Business Performance and Financial Measures in Six Sigma

Six Sigma improvement begins with assessing the current performance of an organization's processes and products, and comparing it with the desired performance. An important part of this assessment is choosing a set of measures that will provide a comprehensive picture of how the company is achieving its goals of customer satisfaction, organizational learning and improvement, internal process performance, and bottom-line financial growth. This course examines business measures in two categories: business performance measures and purely financial measures, exploring how these measures reveal the current state of the business and point to gains achievable through Six Sigma.

This course explores how businesses use balanced scorecard and key performance indicators (KPIs) to find their critical success factors and use them to measure progress toward organizational goals. It also explores the varied and sometimes unexpected effects of customer loyalty on business success. Turning to purely financial measures of success, this course explores how these financial measures are crucial in determining whether the potential returns of Six Sigma projects will outweigh the required investment.

It provides practice in using the formulas associated with these measures, including revenue growth, market share, margin, cost-benefit analysis, return on investment (ROI), and net present value (NPV). This course is aligned with the ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt certification exam and is designed to assist learners as part of their exam preparation. It builds on foundational knowledge that is taught in SkillSoft s ASQ-aligned Green Belt curriculum.

• Determine whether an indicator exhibits all the characteristics of a key performance indicator (KPI).
• Recognize how KPIs can be used at different phases of a Six Sigma project.
• Recognize which quantifiable components of customer loyalty have been considered in a given scenario.
• Identify the importance of understanding the financial impact of customer loyalty.
• Calculate revenue growth, market share, and margin from a given dataset.
• Identify how Six Sigma can enhance revenue growth, market share, and margin for an organization.
• Distinguish between types of project costs and benefits.
• Distinguish between types of project costs and benefits.
• Sequence the steps in cost-benefit analysis.
• Calculate ROI in a given Six Sigma scenario.