Lean Six Sigma in Management of Sales Process

This paper presents an LSS (Lean Six Sigma) based action plan to improve direct sales processes in banking. The aim is to verify whether and how LSS methodology can enhance the direct sales process at a bank. LSS is commonly applied in managing manufacturing processes, the fact that processes which are improved by lss method should be repetitive, large scale and conform to the law of a stochastic process. Therefore LSS methodology is used for revamping production processes, administration processes and others. LSS methodology comprises 5 steps: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control (DMAIC). Retailing banking products often relies on influencing the customer and as such it is a mental process. This paper presents the plan and tools for conducting quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative aspect focuses on measuring the time required to complete each action in the sales process i.e. small talk, rapport building, countering objections and selling the product. The qualitative aspect is measured by means of a Voice of Process survey on the difficulty of the sales process. The result we aim at is to identify the variables on which the time and amount of sales depend. The majority of the research is based on real-life case studies and therefore it is one of the first attempts at connecting LSS methodology with the direct (face-to-face) sales process.