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Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986.[1] [2] As of 2010, it is widely used in many sectors of industry, although its use is not without controversy.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.[3] It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts", "Green Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods.[3] Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit increase).[3]The term six sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing, specifically terms associated with statistical modelling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating indicating its yield, or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. A six-sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million). Motorola set a goal of "six sigmas" for all of its manufacturing operations, and this goal became a byword for the management and engineering practices used to achieve it.

Historical overview

Six Sigma originated as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well.[4] In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as any process output that does not meet customer specifications, or that could lead to creating an output that does not meet customer specifications.[3] Bill Smith first formulated the particulars of the methodology at Motorola in 1986.[1] Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, TQM, and Zero Defects,[5][6] based on the work of pioneers such as Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi and others. Like its predecessors, Six Sigma doctrine asserts that:

Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (i.e., reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success. Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled. Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include:

A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.[3] An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.[3] A special infrastructure of "Champions," "Master Black Belts," "Black Belts," "Green Belts", etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach.[3]

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A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork.[3]

The term "Six Sigma" comes from a field of statistics known as process capability studies. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).[7][8] Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better. Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola Inc.[9] As of 2006 Motorola reported over US$17 billion in savings[10] from Six Sigma. Other early adopters of Six Sigma who achieved well-publicized success include Honeywell (previously known as AlliedSignal) and General Electric, where Jack Welch introduced the method.[11] By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality.[12] In recent years, some practitioners have combined Six Sigma ideas with lean manufacturing to yield a methodology named Lean Six Sigma.

Push-Pull Marketing
Written by Richard San Juan for Gaebler Ventures Push-pull marketing strategies are two distinct methods of promoting products and services to a target market. There are specific advantages in using each of these two marketing strategies. Being able to know the difference as well as how to use both in conjunction with another is very valuable information to an entrepreneur. Push and pull marketing is used to define marketing practices for getting customers to purchase a certain brand, product, or service. (article continues below) When you think of push and pull marketing, think of it in terms of a person either gets "pulled" in to see what the seller has to offer or the seller "pushes" out what he has to sell to the buyer. Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages depending on the overall marketing strategy being used. Differentiating and knowing how to use both marketing strategies will be very beneficial to aspiring entrepreneurs. Push Marketing In a "push" system, the customer usually doesn't request the product or service to be developed. Instead, the product or service is "pushed" out to the end-user through methods like advertising

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on relevant websites, e-mail marketing refined by search engine optimization, and cold calling or e-mailing a prospect. These represent ways to be proactive and engage your target market. This approach is most useful for entrepreneurs, because oftentimes, when they start their small businesses, their products or services are not well known to the public. Therefore, by following this strategy, at least the products or services will be known to the target segment. Of course, however, the marketers will mostly concentrating on promoting the product's features and benefits in an effort to get a favorable response from potential consumers. An example of this can be seen when perfume products being sold. Women generally do not request to smell a fragrance from a brand they are not familiar with or unknown to them. However, if the retailer is promoting that specific brand of perfume, the salesperson can recommend or "push" the consumer to sample it. In sum, "push" marketing is definitely more of a short-term strategy to get the targeted market familiar with the products or services being offered. Pull Marketing In a "pull" marketing strategy, the customer requests the product to be "pulled" through the delivery channel. With regards to this approach, various advertising and promotional strategies are developed to generate publicity to entice potential customers to gravitate towards a seller's products or services. "Pull" marketing lets an entrepreneur or company focus on the development of the brand. While "push" marketing is more concerned with short-term results, "pull" marketing wants to create loyal supporters by setting a certain standard for their brand. An example of this is the Porsche brand of cars. The company concentrated its efforts in developing the brand through the years. As a result, when the word "Porsche" is mentioned, majority of consumers readily associate it with being a high quality sports car due to the reputation of the brand. This strategic development of the brand will obviously help in the long-term as companies and entrepreneurs can then offer more future products and services to interested customers who are already familiar with the brand.

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All marketing falls into two categories: push marketing and pull marketing. To marketers, it's as basic as breathing in and out. But that doesn't help the millions of would-be business owners who have left (or will be leaving) the corporate world to start their own businesses without the benefit of a marketing education. So consider this a quick marketing course: If you think of your store as a doorway, and just on the other side of the doorway is your product. And reluctant to enter the doorway is the prospect. How do you get them to come in? With marketing. Think of marketing as a type of force on the prospect. You can choose to pull the prospect through the door or you can push them through the door. What is pull marketing? Pull marketing is where you develop advertising and promotional strategies that are meant to entice the prospect to buy your product or service. Some classic examples are "half off!" or "bring in this coupon to save 25%" or "buy one get one free", etc. With pull marketing, you are trying to create a sense of increased, time limited value so that the customer will come into your store to buy. What is push marketing? Push marketing is where you develop advertising and promotional strategies geared toward your marketing and distribution channels to entice them in promoting your product. As consumers, you rarely see this type of marketing when it is directed to the distributors. It might include wholesale discounts, kickbacks, bonuses, and other types of support. It's all designed to have the retailer promote your product to the end users over a different product. In recent years, I've seen a nearly exponential increase in the past decade - another type of push marketing is taking over. It's the referral and word of mouth marketing. When companies encourage happy customers to spread the word to their friends and families, that's a type of push marketing. Or, when companies make ads that are controversial, cheeky, or downright shocking, they create a little buzz - that's another type of push marketing. Why you need both. Just one strategy will not give you as good of a return. I believe you need to balance both strategies to create a great marketing mix that powerfully entices customers to come through your door. Some customers react to one type or to the other. For example, the bargain hunters might react to the pull marketing tactics while the socially-aware buyers might respond to the push marketing. Or, if you have a product that requires a lot of convincing to buy, the "double barreled" approach will help to ensure that they can't resist your offer. Here's how to build both into your business: When you are working on your annual marketing plan, make sure that you are scheduling marketing 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. But when you do, don't just stop at one effort: plan to do both push marketing and pull marketing throughout the entire year. Identify your marketing efforts as push marketing or pull marketing. Schedule them into your year at a glance calendar. Then, get out two colored markers and mark your push marketing in one color and your pull marketing in another color. You'll see that they

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overlap sometimes and other times where you are only actively doing one. Make sure that 365 days a year you are doing both!

A Good Push-Pull Marketing Strategy

A good marketing strategy that incorporates both push marketing and pull marketing typically includes the following 10 strategies:
1. Your website. The number one pull marketing tool that you have is your website. This is where you have the ability to really show off what youre all about. You can highlight certain products to create a demand for them among your customers. 2. Your blog. The blog should extend the purpose of the website. It should provide useful information in a way that encourages readers to build loyalty for your business. 3. The use of social media. Proper social media development isnt about aggressively advertising your product or business. Its about creating a buzz around your product and getting others talking about. Targeted social media use as well as general use of social media is a great combination push pull strategy. 4. Establish active forums. Having forums on your site is a terrific way to get people talking about your products, your service and your brand. You can use third party forums to start this conversation as well but launching and growing your own forums is more effective for marketing. 5. Email newsletters. This is a direct way to advertise what youre doing and what your business is proud of to customers that have already shown an interest in your work. 6. Press releases. This is another great way to directly advertise your business. Use online press releases (also known as social media press releases) to include useful links to your products in your press releases. 7. Sales announcements. However you choose to present them, sales announcements are always an enticing marketing option that goes direct to the customer to create a demand for your product. 8. Paid advertising. Many online businesses use some form of paid advertising to raise awareness of their brand. Paid advertising is a smart push marketing strategy. 9. Collaborate with others in your industry. If you can get quoted as an expert in your industry by credible bloggers and journalists then you can raise awareness of your online business. If you guest post on other sites and syndicate your content in your field then you grow your own credibility in the field. Collaborating with others in the field that way is a great marketing tool that can be used to pull others towards your brand. 10.Surveys and polls. Pull marketing is all about learning what your customers want and delivering what they want to them. The use of surveys is a great way to get that information. This is a tool you can use to enhance your online marketing strategy.

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How to Balance Push and Pull Marketing
Using a combination of the above strategies will provide you with a nice natural balance of push and pull marketing. Keeping in mind the purpose of each type of marketing can further keep you balanced. Remember that push marketing means crafting your own specific message and pushing it out to customers. In contrast, pull marketing is about drawing from your community of customers and responding to them to create additional loyalty and demand for your brand. Do both.

WeP Peripherals Limited, one of Indias largest employee-owned companies, was established in September 2000. Starting primarily with Dot Matrix Printers, WeP is now diversified into emerging and growing segments including Power Solutions, Retail Solutions and After Market while continuously strengthening its portfolio of printers. With the ever growing demand for printers and UPS in the country, among the small and medium enterprises, WePs products are designed keeping in mind the current requirements of the market, which are high on quality and yet cost effective. Our growing product portfolio reflects the rapid pace we have gained over the years. WeP design, develops, manufactures and services these products. Impact Printers, High Speed Printers & Line Matrix Printers have been the traditional business for WeP. WeP continues its dominance in these areas. WePs has two state of art manufacturing facilities at Mysore (Karnataka) and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh). They are state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities having the capacity to produce more than 650,000 products and 1 million consumables per annum. WeP has created Indias largest IT products sales infrastructure of 10,000 active retail outlets and supports more than 2,000 large business consumers directly. To enable superior product development, WeP has expanded its Research & Development group with in-depth domain expertise and specialization in cross-functional project management process. Research and Development is inspired by trends and the consumers' desires. We at WeP have aligned R&D to deliver consumer sensitivity in our product design and development. We

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have dedicated Research & Development team focusing on each product line. Consumers can look forward to MORE WoW & tech fantasy products. WeP is known for its quality with 6 sigma initiative & ISO 9000 standards of certification for its Product Development, Manufacturing, Marketing and Support. We have recently been certified ISO 14001:2004 for our Himachal Factory and ISO 9001-2000 for our support function.

BCG Matrix Model

BCG Matrix Model

The BCG matrix or also called BCG model relates to marketing. The BCG model is a wellknown portfolio management tool used in product life cycle theory. BCG matrix is often used to prioritize which products within company product mix get more funding and attention. The BCG matrix model is a portfolio planning model developed by Bruce Henderson of the Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970's. The BCG model is based on classification of products (and implicitly also company business units) into four categories based on combinations of market growth and market share relative to the largest competitor.

When should I use the BCG matrix model?

Each product has its product life cycle, and each stage in product's life-cycle represents a different profile of risk and return. In general, a company should maintain a balanced portfolio of products. Having a balanced product portfolio includes both high-growth products as well as low-growth products. A high-growth product is for example a new one that we are trying to get to some market. It takes some effort and resources to market it, to build distribution channels, and to build sales infrastructure, but it is a product that is expected to bring the gold in the future. An example of this product would be an iPod. A low-growth product is for example an established product known by the market. Characteristics of this product do not change much, customers know what they are getting, and the price does not change much either. This product has only limited budget for marketing. The is the milking cow that brings in the constant flow of cash. An example of this product would be a regular Colgate toothpaste. But the question is, how do we exactly find out what phase our product is in, and how do we classify what we sell? Furthermore, we also ask, where does each of our products fit into our

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product mix? Should we promote one product more than the other one? The BCG matrix can help with this. The BCG matrix reaches further behind product mix. Knowing what we are selling helps managers to make decisions about what priorities to assign to not only products but also company departments and business units.

What is the BCG matrix and how does the BCG model work?
Placing products in the BCG matrix results in 4 categories in a portfolio of a company: BCG STARS (high growth, high market share) - Stars are defined by having high market share in a growing market. - Stars are the leaders in the business but still need a lot of support for promotion a placement. - If market share is kept, Stars are likely to grow into cash cows. BCG QUESTION MARKS (high growth, low market share) - These products are in growing markets but have low market share. - Question marks are essentially new products where buyers have yet to discover them. - The marketing strategy is to get markets to adopt these products. - Question marks have high demands and low returns due to low market share. - These products need to increase their market share quickly or they become dogs. - The best way to handle Question marks is to either invest heavily in them to gain market share or to sell them. BCG CASH COWS (low growth, high market share) - Cash cows are in a position of high market share in a mature market. - If competitive advantage has been achieved, cash cows have high profit margins and generate a lot of cash flow. - Because of the low growth, promotion and placement investments are low. - Investments into supporting infrastructure can improve efficiency and increase cash flow more. - Cash cows are the products that businesses strive for. BCG DOGS (low growth, low market share) - Dogs are in low growth markets and have low market share. - Dogs should be avoided and minimized. - Expensive turn-around plans usually do not help. And now, let's put all this into a picture:

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Are there any problems with the BCG matrix model?

Some limitations of the BCG matrix model include:

The first problem can be how we define market and how we get data about market share A high market share does not necessarily lead to profitability at all times The model employs only two dimensions market share and product or service growth rate Low share or niche businesses can be profitable too (some Dogs can be more profitable than cash Cows) The model does not reflect growth rates of the overall market The model neglects the effects of synergy between business units Market growth is not the only indicator for attractiveness of a market

There are probably even more aspects that need to be considered in a particular use of the BCG model. The marketing mix is probably the most famous marketing term. Its elements are the basic, tactical components of a marketing plan. Also known as the Four P's, the marketing mix elements are price, place, product, and promotion. Read on for more details on the marketing mix.The concept is simple. Think about another common mix - a cake mix. All cakes contain eggs, milk, flour, and sugar. However, you can alter the final cake by altering the amounts of mix elements contained in it. So for a sweet cake add more sugar!It is the same with the marketing mix. The offer you make to you customer can be altered by varying the mix elements. So for a high profile brand, increase the focus on promotion and desensitize the weight given to price. Another way to think about the marketing mix is to use the image of an artist's palette. The marketer mixes the prime colours (mix elements) in different quantities to deliver a particular final colour. Every hand painted picture is original in some way, as is every marketing mix. If

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you'd like to see the marketing mix applied to a real business - then take a look at our Ryanair marketing mix. Some commentators will increase the marketing mix to the Five P's, to include people. Others will increase the mix to Seven P's, to include physical evidence (such as uniforms, facilities, or livery) and process (i.e. the whole customer experience e.g. a visit the Disney World). The term was coined by Neil H. Borden in his article The Concept of the Marketing Mix in 1965.

Price
There are many ways to price a product. Let's have a look at some of them and try to understand the best policy/strategy in various situations. Read more...

Place
Another element of Neil H.Borden's Marketing Mix is Place. Place is also known as channel, distribution, or intermediary. It is the mechanism through which goods and/or services are moved from the manufacturer/ service provider to the user or consumer. Read more...

Product

For many a product is simply the tangible, phsysical entity that they may be buying or selling. You buy a new car and that's the product - simple! Or maybe not. When you buy a car, is the product more complex than you first thought? The Three Levels of a Product . . . Read more... The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is based upon the biological life cycle. For example, a seed is planted (introduction); it begins to sprout (growth); it shoots out leaves and puts down roots as it becomes an adult (maturity); after a long period as an adult the plant begins to shrink and die out (decline). Read more... The Customer Life Cycle (CLC) has obvious similarities with the Product Life Cycle (PLC). However, CLC focuses upon the creation of and delivery of lifetime value to the customer i.e. looks at the products or services that customers NEED throughout their lives. Read more...

Promotion
Another one of the 4P's is promotion. This includes all of the tools available to the marketer for 'marketing communication'. As with Neil H.Borden's marketing mix, marketing communications has its own 'promotions mix.' Think of it like a cake mix, the basic ingredients are always the same. However if you vary the amounts of one of the ingredients, the final outcome is different. Read more...

Physical Evidence

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Physical Evidence is the material part of a service. Strictly speaking there are no physical attributes to a service, so a consumer tends to rely on material cues. There are many examples of physical evidence, including some of the following: Read more...

People
People are the most important element of any service or experience. Services tend to be produced and consumed at the same moment, and aspects of the customer experience are altered to meet the 'individual needs' of the person consuming it. Read more...

Process
Process is another element of the extended marketing mix, or 7P's.There are a number of perceptions of the concept of process within the business and marketing literature. Some see processes as a means to achieve an outcome, for example - to achieve a 30% market share a company implements a marketing planning process