For high-performance companies, the customer is king. This is only a lean management concept, and an integral part is a continuous improvement process in all areas. Without it, no company can provide top performance in the long run from the point of view of its customers. The following project report describes how such a culture can be anchored in the minds of the employees of a large company and in its processes.
Most companies have taken initiatives to continuously increase the performance of the organization – often with a growing success. They did not succeed in anchoring the pursuit of quality in the minds of their employees and in the processes that this is an integral part of everyday work.
The starting situation for an international financial services group from Germany was similar in the beginning of 2013. He, too, had already launched numerous initiatives to anchor the quest for improvement, so to speak, in the DNA of his organization – among other things, a so-called Excellence program, in order to identify the competence of the employees, improvement possibilities and to avoid wasting.
The excellence activities had measurable success. One drawback, however, was that the improvements were limited to the processes in individual areas, although the customer-relevant services are usually provided by the financial services provider in cross-functional processes. In addition, there was no cross-divisional approach when trying to increase performance. The main drawback, however, was that the pursuit of improvement was often not seen as an integral part of everyday work. The procedure was accordingly unsystematic.