The Olympics and Lean: Two keys to help you improve your business

Regardless of size, there is one goal that many businesses have in common: Improvement. That being said, setting such a nebulous objective can be challenging.

What is improvement? It can mean many things to a variety of businesses. For a retailer, it could be lifting sales. For a marketing company, it could be acquiring more clients. For a call center, it could be resolving more cases.

Even for one company, improvement can take on a variety of meanings. Someone in charge of factory production might say improvement is bolstering the number of goods manufactured, while someone in the sales department would define it as an increase in items sold. Improvement can even change depending on the current business climate – in a recession, it could be a marginal increase in year-over-year profit, while in times of prosperity, it may be the rate of growth.

Big data and the Olympics

Regardless of what improvement is to your company, it's important that metrics are quantifiable and measurable, or else you'll never be able to accurately evaluate whether you're achieving your goals.

The Better Business Bureau suggests companies should look to the Olympics as an example of continuous improvement. Athletes measure everything they do, whether it's pounds of weight lifted, number of laps completed, number of feet jumped or time taken to finish a race. Continuous improvement is a constant goal, and Olympic athletes use numbers as a means of evaluating their progress. This adherence to data is something businesses should emulate as a means to ensure they are always improving, regardless of their end goals.

“In business, recent advances in technology provide easier access to more robust data and different kinds of digital dashboard software available,” the BBB adds. “You can measure your company's health and performance too: it simply comes down to choosing the right software in order to measure your data.”

In short, the more data your company has about its business processes, the more improvements you can make. Metrics are very evident in some areas – for example, enacting a sales change that drives higher revenue. In other areas, businesses may have to be creative – counting the number of steps needed to complete a task, for instance.

By creating quantifiable metrics, companies can turn Kaizen transformations into something that can be evaluated. This is often crucial in established businesses with set policies that may initially be resistant to change. By proving that Lean methodologies are actually leading to observable improvements, businesses will be able to convince even the staunchest of Kaizen detractors.

Measurement in action

Several businesses and government organizations have already taken this numbered approach to Kaizen integration.

The State of Iowa, for example, recently opted to integrate Lean practices. Throughout departments, the benefits were noticeable almost immediately. For instance, the Department of Transportation was able to reduce the number of steps required to issue a temporary restricted license by 46 percent. This data, combined with other anecdotal evidence, serves as a means to prove the perks of Kaizen.

“Still, last year's overhaul of the vocational rehabilitation office that assists with Social Security reimbursements is on pace to net about 20 percent more federal reimbursement money, or roughly $100,000 annually. One key fix: switching from a paper to an electronic claims process,” Bloomberg Businessweek reported.