No More Mistakes? Six Sigma’s Promise
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This article was prepared for the
November 7, 2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights
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Meetings Can Be Cost Effective
The meeting planning industry has taken a hit. Even
before September 11, business was not what it had been. After that
terrible day, business declined still more, and in ways that may
outlast
the economic downturn.
Michael Young, owner of Meeting Dimensions, an eight-person
Pennington company, says Meeting Planners International, an industry
group, recently called an summit to discuss the situation.
“Without
question,” he says, “things have changed. There have been
a lot of cancellations, and a lot of downsizings.” Meetings that
were to have drawn 300 people, he says, might now draw 250. Still,
he says there are encouraging signs. Events are now being booked for
2003.
Young says there are ways to cut the fat out of the cost of meetings,
and to get around the new reluctance to travel. He speaks on “Cost
Efficient, Effective, Meaningful Events” on Wednesday, November
14, at 7:30 a.m. at a meeting of the Princeton Chamber at the Nassau
Club. Cost: $21. Call 609-520-1776.
Young’s roots are in the restaurant industry. His family owned Don
Young’s restaurant on Olden Avenue for 15 years, and Cala’s on Scotch
Road for 18 years. He started a catering business “out of the
back door” of Cala’s 13 years ago. Soon thereafter, a friend who
worked at Scanticon (now the Doral Forrestal) told him IBM was looking
for someone to put on an event for 1,200 people.
Young took on the challenge, and when the meeting was over asked his
IBM contact if he could bid on future jobs. The answer was yes, and
the new company reeled in many more contracts. Those events led to
work for other corporations. Meeting Dimensions now does the majority
of its work for pharmaceutical and medical concerns. Communications
was another big niche for the company, but recent problems in the
industry have cut into that business.
Setting up a meeting is more than erecting tents and hiring waiters.
Young compares the business to architecture. He is in on everything
from designing a concept to finding just the right site for the
occasion.
He chooses a menu, draws up an agenda, books speakers and
entertainers,
arranges for lighting and multimedia linkages, makes travel
arrangements,
sends out invitations, reserves hotel rooms, and sets up registration.
Young puts on about 50 meetings a year. Most revolve around product
launches, national meetings, and the incentive gatherings corporations
use to reward top producers. Along the way, he has picked up a wealth
of information about what an effective meeting looks like. Here is
some advice.
Know what the meeting is for. “The most importantthing is to identify measurable objectives,” Young says. In hisview, nothing else comes close. “If you don’t know what you wantto do,” he asks, “how will you know if you have achievedit?”Identify all the stakeholders, and decide what it is you want themto get out of the meeting. Then measure results. As part of itsservice,Young’s company will hand out surveys, conduct focus groups, and givetesting to attendees at instructional gatherings before and afterthey sit through training classes.Meetings are expensive. Companies need a way to see just what returnon investment they yield. Yet, says Young, most clients are reluctantto spend the money to set objectives for their gatherings. This mightnot be much of a problem if a company’s only event is an annualholidayparty, but, says Young, “the more a company uses meetings andevents as a business tool to contribute to the bottom line, the moreimportant return on investment is.”Painless cost cutting. Many corporations are now on amonetary diet, and most have lots of meeting fat from which they cancut. A night at the Ritz Carlton is $300, Young points out, whilethe same bed can be had at a Holiday Inn for $50. Some companiesroutinelyuse the more expensive lodgings when the lower cost rooms could servethe same purpose. Likewise, in flush times, a mansion serves as alovely backdrop — at $6,000 a night — but a hotel conferenceroom can often be had at no charge. “They make money on food anddrink,” Young observes, and so many hotels will throw in theconferenceroom.Pretend cost cutting. With economic gloom and doom makingthe headlines on a regular basis, even flush corporations may feeluneasy about making a big splash at their events. There are ways,Young says, to make an expensive gathering look less so. “I canspend $1,000 on special effects lighting, and everyone notices,”Young says. Cutting that frill will make the meeting seem much moreaustere.The same is true for glittery table treatments and huge centerpieces.They don’t cost a whole lot in the larger scheme of things, but createa rich feel. The lesson here is that corporations aiming to lookfrugalcan do so by dumping a few high visibility frills.Circling the wagons. Young predicts that companies thatheld big, national — or international — meetings in the goodold days (pre-September 11) may now replace one meeting in, say,Cancun,with four regional meetings in the United States, within drivingdistanceof many attendees.No matter the size of the company’s budget, “it’s the final5 percent that makes the difference,” says Young. And so veryoften, he sees companies try to get by without it. As an example,he says a company might hold an event at the Forsgate Country Clubto reward top salespeople. The locale is lovely, the food isexcellent,and there is an afternoon of golf. Having spent perhaps $10,000 toarrange this day, which is designed to pump up its best performers,many companies skimp on the speaker.Says Young: “They don’t want to pay $1,500 for a professional,so they get someone from the company.” And the whole mood of theday is spoiled.Top Of PageNo More Mistakes? Six Sigma’s PromiseSix Sigma is a set of tools used in conjunction withthe Total Quality Management (TQM) style of running a department oran organization. Its aim is to reduce errors in all sorts of businessprocesses to near zero. It urges companies to consider some zen-likepremises, such as “we don’t know what we don’t know.” At leastsix books have been written on the subject, and a plethora of websitesprovide everything from Six Sigma tips of the day to information onhow to become a Six Sigma green belt or a black belt. Six Sigma: TheBreakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World’s TopCorporations(Doubleday, $29.95) is a new book on the methodology, which is saidto have boosted GE’s bottom line by as much as $6.6 billion.On Wednesday, November 14, at 5:30 p.m. Frenck Waage of MarketValue Management speaks to the American Society for Quality on”UsingSix Sigma to Value a Company to Sustained Profitable Growth” atthe Ramada in North Brunswick. Cost: $25. Call 609-730-9681.Six Sigma, referring to the six points of standard deviation frommean to a specified limit, leads organization through a five-stepevaluation:We don’t know what we don’t know.We can’t do what we don’t know.We won’t know until we measure.We don’t measure what we don’t value.We don’t value what we don’t measure.The results from following this thought process, say proponentsof Six Sigma, include increased market share, cost reductions, anddramatic improvements in profitability. Reducing errors and mistakesis also a key outcome. Six Sigma promises, in fact, to go beyondmistakereduction, and to recreate business processes so that mistakes arenever made in the first place.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
