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Int. J. Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2009

Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction

Shirley Mo-Ching Yeung
Department of Business Studies,
Hang Seng School of Commerce (HSSC),
Hang Shin Link, Siu Lek Yuen, Shatin,
New Territories, Hong Kong
Email: shirleyyeung@hssc.edu.hk
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the use of Suppliers, Inputs,
Processes, Outputs and Customers (SIPOC) in Six Sigma to monitor products
and services provision for customer satisfaction. This paper has been supported
with literature in Six Sigma, quality management and marketing management
with a case of a retail shoe shop in Hong Kong. Previous researches seldom
covered the application of SIPOC in marketing management to fulfil customer
need, customer satisfaction, concerns of stakeholders and the community.
A case of integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into a social responsible and ethical
retail shoe shop has been demonstrated in this paper. However, adopting
quality concepts in marketing management is still not common, neither in
academic curriculum nor in business practice. It is suggested carrying out
further researches on the use of quality concepts in analysing the relationship
between consumer behaviour and business performance.
Keywords: quality concepts; SIPOC; suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and
customers; Six Sigma; marketing management; customer satisfaction; systematic.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Yeung, S.M-C. (2009)
Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction, Int. J. Six Sigma and
Competitive Advantage, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp.312324.
Biographical notes: Shirley Yeung is Assistant Professor/Quality Assurance
Manager at Hang Seng School of Commerce, Hong Kong. She has 20 years of
experience in commercial and academic fields. Her main research areas are
business management and quality management. She had her Doctor Degree
in Business Administration from Asia International Open University (AIOU)
in 2006. Besides, she is a Quality Management System Lead Auditor from
IRCA, UK, and a registered Principal Auditor with RABQSA (USA) with
Six Sigma (Green Belt) qualification. She has been invited by local and overseas
academic accreditation bodies for acting as subject specialist and assessor.

Introduction

Sheahan (2007) mentioned that business today requires new perspectives on strategy,
operation, customers and staff. He urged management of organisations shall have a
mindset of flexibility and should try different ways of doing things in this complex
business world. There is no single way to success. This is especially true in marketing
management as customer demand keeps on changing. The survival of business relies
heavily on realising and actualising the demands of customers through appealing
Copyright 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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313

marketing campaigns. Therefore, people working in marketing field should keep abreast
of not only the dynamic business environment, but also the use of quality concepts in
managing and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Developing a mindset of social responsibility in marketing management is crucial for
sustainability. Marketers should have a concept of social responsibility when launching
marketing campaign to the public; and they should be competent in integrating latest
quality management tools into marketing matrix to catch up with the needs of society as
mentioned by Scott (2005) that responsiveness to needs of society is important.
According to Sheahan (2007), there are four forces of change. They are as follows:
1

increasing compression of time and space;

increasing complexity;

increasing transparency and accountability and

increasing expectations on the part of everyone for everything.

As the fundamental function of marketing is to promote products or services to the

public, the driving force of change mostly comes from transparency and accountability,
and expectation of people in a community. This relates to the concept of social
responsibility showing concern for an organisations stakeholders, like owners,
employees, customers and the communities. Being responsible for customers is important
for sustainable business. Collins (2008) mentioned that ethical organisational activities
include the criteria of treating customers fairly and holding every member accountable
for his or her actions. Therefore, the change in marketing management is to develop a
sense of social responsibility and ethics when launching marketing activities to the
public. This has been well supported by Ambler (2000) that marketing is the process of
satisfying three groups of people: immediate (trade) customers, end users (consumers)
and all the firms stakeholders.
Awareness is vitally important in the work of transformation because the
habits of our personality let go most completely when we see them as they are
occurring. Analyzing past behavior is helpful, but it is not as powerful as
observing ourselves as we are in the present moment. (Riso, 1999)

Riso (1999) brought up the use of observation in our daily life for learning. Marketers
should observe changes in the business environment, realise techniques in launching
marketing campaigns and develop a good sense of social responsibility to their
stakeholders for achieving sustainability in business.
Awareness can not only change your life, it can save your life. (Riso, 1999)

However, making one realise the importance of quality concepts in marketing is not
an easy task in this fast-paced commercial world. One justification for this paper is to
increase the awareness of using quality concepts in marketing activities, and to develop
social responsibility of marketers who engage in product and service promotion to the
public.

Marketing management

Sheahan (2007) stated that customers total ownership experience derived from four
things, namely service, form, functionality and story. Among these four things, story is

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S.M-C. Yeung

the most powerful one as a feeling is established between products and customers.
However, the way of realising whether a feeling has been created between products and
customers is not easy to be identified.
Innovation permeates so much of business that we need to be clear about the
unit of analysis for marketing metrics. (Ambler, 2000)

In order to identify the link between marketing activities clearly people, product, place,
price, promotion, customers needs and satisfaction, innovative metrics shall be used.
Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs and Customers (SIPOC) is a systematic tool to help
build a link of these variables and act as audit criteria for marketing performance.
Quality Progress magazine of American Society of Quality (ASQ, 2007) has stated that
SIPOC diagram is a tool used by Six Sigma process improvement teams to identify all
relevant elements of a process improvement project before work begins.
According to Ambler (2000), innovation should be found in creation, development
and implementation of goods, services, service delivery and any new activity that
will affect a firms performance in the market. All businesses concern about their
performance profits and growth. Innovation can be a way to bring profits and growth.
This refers to innovative products and processes of manufacturing in production;
creativity in the process of service delivery and value in marketing metrics which help
monitor marketing performance.
Most marketing management concerns factors affecting performance. Hence, using
practical metrics to identify variables in marketing activities can help control and
decision-making. Marketing management should have strategic leadership in setting
goals for subordinates. They should establish an innovative culture in generating ideas
of product and service promotion and measuring marketing performance. The process of
measurement shall be fast, cheap and efficient to realise marketing performance.

Considerations of ethics and social responsibility in marketing

Tsai et al. (2006) mentioned that business ethics is attracting increasing attention among
management scholars in North America and Europe. However, this topic has not been
covered comprehensively in East Asian economies with exception of perhaps Japan.
They stated that relationship is found between organisation structure and ethics.
DesJarins (2006) described business ethics as those values, standards and principles
that operate within business. He emphasised that we not only study the standards, values
and principles, but also learn how to articulate them into business operation.
DesJarins (2006) mentioned that each of the four Ps product, pricing, promotion,
and placement is actually involved with ethical questions that marketers need to be aware
of. They should make sure that there are no frauds, deception, or coercion involved. They
should treat consumers fairly in marketing situations.
When these conditions are violated, autonomy is not respected and mutual
benefit not attained. (DesJarins, 2006)
It is not always easy to determines if someone is being treated with respect in
marketing situationsFirst, the person must freely consent to the transaction
the more a consumer needs a product, the less free he or she is to choose
and therefore the more protection he or she deserves from unsafe products or
unscrupulous manufacturers. (DesJarins, 2006)

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315

In an international conference on business ethics in 2006, Michalos brought up that

though Aristotle had not given people a clear concept of business ethics, it is
understandable that to serve people in highest good is the ultimate aim of business ethics.
According to Michalos, commitment for actions shall be borne with the concept of right
and the anticipated consequences. This has been well supported by DesJarins (2006)
that we should consider the consequences, all the consequences, of our actions, before
deciding what to do. He stated clearly that we should not only consider the consequences
of our acts, but also the consequences of our acts for all parties affected by them.
This means we need to be responsible for our stakeholders. Hence, the initial steps for
a socially responsible organisation are to find out its structure and key process, its
stakeholders and its needs in order to serve the community better.
The term Stakeholder has been put into todays management vocabulary. In fact, it
provides a full picture for management to map their ought to be obligations and as
well as their need to be customers requirements. Having a stakeholder map, it can
widen the horizon of marketers in the sense of making them realise the importance of
social responsibility in marketing activities, and the need of fulfilling requirements
of customers and the society. According to DesJarins (2006), the stakeholder theory of
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) begins with the insight that every business
decision affects a wide variety of people, benefiting some and imposing costs on others.
Therefore, marketers should be responsible and accountable for their stakeholders.
Sheahan (2007) mentioned that accountability is being forced onto business in three
interconnected ways: top-down accountability, lateral accountability and bottom-up
accountability. Bottom-up accountability plays a crucial role in marketing management
as a great impact on organisational reputation will be formed via a positive or negative
experience people have had with its brand. Hence, it is worth to highlight social
responsibility to marketers for maintaining a positive image.
Despite the fact that marketing is one of the core disciplines of business,
marketing ethics as a field of study has only recently become a focus within
business ethics. While product safety and advertising, admittedly two central
parts of marketing, have received a good deal of attention, areas such as
pricing, market research, sales, target marketing, and social marketing have
received much less. (DesJarin, 2006)

Building on the principles of business ethics, being responsible and accountable to

stakeholders, marketers should have a responsibility to represent the best interests of the
organisations that they work for with consideration of the financial desires of investors.
Besides, some concerned parties have started identifying shared values and developing a
common perspective on business behaviour that is acceptable to and honoured by all.
Maignan et al. (2005) mentioned that marketing should be moved from a narrow
perspective customer orientation into a broader and balanced perspective managing
relationships and benefits for stakeholders. The followings are the areas that can be
embedded with CSR into marketing:
1

discovering organisational values and norms;

identifying stakeholders;

identifying stakeholder issues;

assessing the meaning of CSR;

auditing current practices;

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S.M-C. Yeung

implementing CSR initiatives;

promoting CSR and

gaining stakeholder feedback.

System thinking and SIPOC of Six Sigma

Ottman (2000) mentioned that systems thinking could be applied at any stage of a
products life cycle, from concept development to raw material extraction, manufacturing,
distribution end-use, and recovery or disposal. The use of systems thinking is especially
important in three stages named as: product concept, raw materials and disposal.
She highlighted that cross-functional product development and marketing teams
could interpret information from different life cycle phases and synthesise new ideas by
using systems thinking.
The most successful businesses are those that understand, appreciate, and
leverage the system in which they operate. (Ottman, 2000)

As there are many variables in marketing activities affecting marketing and business
performance, marketers need to develop systems thinking for making right decisions.
According to the idea of Woodside (2006), all variables have both dependent and
independent relationships with other variables. Consequently, business performance will
be highly affected by variables as demographics, socio-cultural and economic factors.
Hence, mapping and building relationship of involved variables for decision-making
have been emerged.
Christensen (cited in Woodside, 2006) mentioned that rational decisions are
correlated with profitable returns while Weick (cited in Woodside, 2006) has forwarded
the idea of mapping out positive and negative relationships and feedback loops among
organisational variables for making sense of the complexity and hidden influences in
decision-making.
All systems include complexities in relationships and events unrecognized by
the implicit mental models of humans. As humans we have limited capacity
and willingness in seeking information and in making decisions (see Simon,
1957; Simon, 1990; Payne et al., 1993). Our decisions usually employ local
rationality and satisficing rules. (Simon, 1990) We tend to focus on
snapshots of isolated parts of a system and fail to see the entire patterns of
changes occurring after changing the value in one event; and we often select
the first option found that appears to be workable, failing to spot much better
solutions. (Woodside, 2006)

Metcalfe (2006) pointed out that the main advantage of system thinking is to shift
thinking from the object to an inter-relationship of components. Therefore, marketers
should develop systematic thinking through the use of quality tools, like SIPOC is used
to find out the linkage between customer satisfaction and marketing activities. Wedgwood
(2007) further pointed out that SIPOC is a powerful tool in the Lean Sigma toolkit.
The SIPOC helps the Team reach consensus on the simple scope and purpose
of the process and the project To that end it is a potent change management
tool. The useful outputs of the tool are: an agreed process scope and process,
the beginning of a list of customers to feed into Voice of Customers (VOC)
work (Wedgwood, 2007)

Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction

317

Sigma is a symbol meaning how much deviation exists in a set of data. It is used
to identify the number of defects within the production process. For service industries
or social service organisations in relation to organisation culture, it can be interpreted
as defects in working relationship, communication and management that affect the
organisational performance. Eckes (2003) mentioned that the fundamental use of
Six Sigma is to improve both effectiveness and efficiency at the same time. It is a
technical measure of the number and the kind of unhappy customers per million
opportunities.
Six Sigma is a measure of customer satisfaction that is near perfection. Most
companies are at the two or three sigma level of dissatisfaction occurrences per
million customer contacts. (Eckes, 2003)

Eckes (2003) brought up that a process was defined as a series of steps and activities that
take inputs provided by suppliers; add value and provide outputs for their customers.
Management needs to measure the existing sigma performance of each of their processes.
This is especially crucial in marketing management as there are a number of marketing
processes involved and they affect customers satisfaction either directly or indirectly.
Hence, management not only identifies the processes, but also monitors their performance.
Their performance is supposed to add value in each process from suppliers to final
outputs with a final destination of achieving their companys business objectives.
The aim of this research is to make use of the idea SIPOC in Six Sigma to reduce
defects by finding out the major components in marketing activities from the eyes of
marketers for improving the management of product, price, place, promotion and people
with stakeholder concern, with a target of meeting customers need, and with an ultimate
goal of enhancing customer satisfaction. With the use of SIPOC in marketing metric,
systematic and factual information can be consolidated for measuring performance of
marketing promotion.
Six Sigma, unlike other quality initiatives that have come before it, is a
management philosophy. (Eckes, 2003)

As marketing activities are situational, using systematic thinking for building interrelationship of marketing components is very important. Metcalfe (2006) mentioned that
human behaviour is very situational.
Much of what we do is because of the situation we are in and who we are
with. (Metcalfe, 2006)

Przekop (2006) mentioned that a fundamental driving principle behind Intuits Six Sigma
efforts is to incorporate three stakeholders into outcomes of improvement. The three
stakeholders are: employees, customers, and shareholders.
looking at the organizations three core processes: creating the products,
acquiring customers and expanding relationship, and servicing and fulfilling
customer requests. (Przekop, 2006)

4.1 Integrating SIPOC into marketing management

Craven (2005) mentioned that customers pay a price for products or services as they
believe that products will deliver benefit and value to them. Hence, marketers should
make sure that value of the benefit exceeds the price that customers pay through making
a standard list of wants and desires: to be safe, to be happy, to have fun, to laugh a lot, to
eat good food, to be entertained, to look good, to be fit, to be healthy, to be popular.

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S.M-C. Yeung

Figure 1 is established based on the rationale of using systems thinking to identify the
variables in marketing activities for decision-making, for marketing success, for business
performance, and for customer satisfaction. Under the idea of Brue (2005) that a set of
business metrics should start with customers and measure matters that are challenging,
like areas of marketing management in Figure 1 all end with customer relationship or
customer satisfaction product, people, price, place and promotion.
SIPOC is an intermediary between the customer and business. Figure 1 is started with
Product as marketers understand that customers want a product or service that can offer
them benefit with value. Therefore, marketers should identify the capabilities of
manufacturers in product design (suppliers). Information gathered from manufacturers
will then be transferred to the business for producing a product with customers
specifications (inputs). Once a product has been created, the marketing department is
responsible for communicating, distributing, displaying and selling (process) the benefits
of the product to customers (outputs) with an ultimate aim of increasing customer
satisfaction with quality products (customers).
Figure 1 focuses on how people reliable, innovative and customer-oriented
personnel can strengthen customer relationship, how price-setting payment terms can
let customers enjoy the product, how place distribution network can increase product
accessibility, and how promotion appealing but ethical promotional campaign can let
customers obtain fair information on product and service.
Moore and Parek (2006) highlighted that marketing is one of the central functions of
a firm as revenue is generated from customers. Hence, management skills of planning,
organising, directing and controlling are implemented in all aspects of SIPOC as shown
in Figure 1. With appropriate use of management skills in SIPOC metric, marketing
variables can then be measured and monitored; and customer satisfaction can then be
achieved.
As such, the fate of the organization rests in the abilities of its marketing
managers theyd be a communicator, seller, planner, researcher, analyst,
product developer, supply chain specialist, or in other words, every activity that
involves meeting a customers need would be a responsibility of a marketing
manager. (Moore and Parek, 2006)

Moore and Parek (2006) emphasised that marketing concept should be built primarily on
the rationale of offering product or service to customers in a more efficient and superior
manner. Needs of customers should be well defined with operations directly related to
delivery of desired product or service. This is well supported by Wedgwood (2007) as he
has stated that SIPOC is a lean sigma toolkit.
The marketing approach creates a symbiotic relationship between consumers
and suppliers, where businesses tie their survival to their customers, and their
customers are bound to the company satisfy their needs. Loyalty and trust form
the basis of the relationship. (Moore and Parek, 2006)

Case study a retail shoe shop in Hong Kong

The retail shoe shop in this study was set up in 1999. The services that it provides include
economical footcare products, free foot assessment and consultation to their clients. It
believes that Prevention is better than Cure. Hence, it provides regular foot assessment
service with the help of orthotist assistants and on-going educational campaigns to the

Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction

319

public about methods of preventing foot problems. These can be regarded as their quality
service for customers. The following information was collected during a face-to-face
interview with President, Vice President and the marketing team members of the shop in
February 2008.

5.1 Integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into marketing management

As shown in Figure 1, marketing management involves five Ps Product, People, Price,
Place and Promotion. First of all, the product lines of the shop can be divided into:
baby, child, lady and adult. Different patterns for their shoe products can be found to cater
different situations, and to offer protection to the feet of their customers.

5.1.1 Product
The case shop has gone through several developmental stages in the past. The management
of the shop realises that improvement is a way to be successful in the future. It started
business in 1999. Its image was quite negative and orthopaedic. It was not easily
acceptable to its customers. Then, it changed its image into healthy one with a slogan of
the company Check & Fit.
The concept of Check & Fit is well accepted by customers. Staff of the shoe shop
will check customers foots before choosing suitable shoe insoles. Its products can be
regarded as professional products as academic research supports their products. The idea
of standardisation ready-made insoles and customisation Check & Fit is found in its
products. School bags will be a kind of product extension of the case shop for developed
countries. This is what Figure 1 mentions about Product output of providing quality
products to increase customer satisfaction.

5.1.2 People
The President of the case is an expert in shoe production, while the Vice President is a
well-recognised prosthesis and orthotist consultant over 20 years. Their partnership is
one of the critical success factors in retail shoe industry. The staff working in the case
shop equips with professional knowledge in prosthesis and orthotist with at least
20 training hours. They know how to operate foot-related machinery that is recognised
from hospitals.
Apart from business partnership and professional staff, the shop has established a
membership programme with its existing customers. Their customer relationship
management activities involve establishing customer data base, issuing membership
cards, sending birthday cards to members, mailing bulletins with discounts offered by
other retail shops twice a year to customers.
For new customers, Check & Fit is provided at no cost. For existing customers,
a free Check & Fit service is offered after four months of purchase. As a result, the
shop has 55% customer retention rate.
Furthermore, the shop has been participating different kinds of CSR activities since
1999. These include: donation to Red Cross and Community Chest, helping the disabled,
sponsoring healthy shoes and school bags to Salvation Army and Tung Wah Group of
Primary Schools, and environmental projects with NGOs. This is what Figure 1 mentions
about leadership skill of management, cooperation among staff and between the shop
and social community groups for establishing positive organisational culture for
strengthening customer relationship.

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S.M-C. Yeung

5.1.3 Price
Though children are the main target group of customers of the shop, its marketing
strategy has been changing putting more focuses on adults and elderly. Its management
realised that lowering the prices of products could make every one afford a healthy pair
of shoes. It did more promotions on price cut. It wanted to promote foot health as a
global concept. It has been trying hard to educate customers to understand that health is
very important. And, accepting its professional footcare services is a trend in Hong
Kong. This is what Figure 1 mentions about setting a reasonable and competitive price
for target customers to enjoy the products.

5.1.4 Place
Presently, the retail shoe shop in this study has 41 branches in Hong Kong covering
Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. The locations of the shops are
either close to public transport or located inside shopping malls to make shops accessible
to customers.
Exploring market in China, especially Shengzhen is one of the future marketing
strategies of the shop. Its management realised that the culture of Shengzhen is quite
similar to that of Hong Kong. However, consuming behaviour of Shengzhen is not
exactly the same as that of HK. They need to study the taste of customers and the tax
system in Shengzhen. This has been covered in Figure 1 choosing appropriate locations
for product distribution to increase customer reach and customer satisfaction.

5.1.5 Promotion
The management of the shop has found that there is a growth in European style of
sportswear in the past few years. Hence, their shoe style and promotional strategy have
been changed as follows:

19992001: Promotion on medical purpose providing orthodontic and prosthetic

services to children.

20022003: A change on market position focusing on health and comfortable

concept for both sexes, especially for 1,000,000 elderly in Hong Kong.

20042005: Developing marketing strategy on health for all ages with price
adjustment make price more affordable with synthetic materials in shoe production.

2005 and up: A theme of Globalisation has emerged to spread the business concept
of the shoe shop to the America and Europe, that is, a health concept of Check &
Fit with trying three kinds of layers to see the suitability at no cost.

A Health concept with diversified products in a trendy look with co-branding strategy
with Disney will be the focus of the case. Establishing corporate accounts with the
police, postmen, airline staff and the Food and Environmental Department will be part of
the shops future marketing strategy too.
Promotional activities of the shop are found in shopping malls with collaboration
with medical authority and Occupation and Health Services Department of Hong Kong.
Elderly homes and schools are also their focus of promotion. Educating the public,
conducting foot health workshops, distributing leaflets, holding magazine interviews are
methods to increase exposure of the shop. This has been covered in Figure 1 launching
informative and appealing promotional campaigns for Word-of-Mouth effect.

Price

People

Product

Price segmentation
Price target
Price penetration
Price skimming
(controlling)

Market research
Customer affordability

(planning and organising)

(planning, organising,
directing)

(controlling)

(planning and organising)

(planning, organising,
directing and controlling)

Bargain with suppliers for

best price, for bulk price,
for desirable payment terms

Leadership
Cooperation
Ethics
Coaching
Collaboration

Innovation
Customer relation skills

(organising)

(organising)

(planning, organising,
directing and controlling)

Sourcing reliable suppliers

Providing quality products

(controlling)

Reasonable and
competitive market price

(directing and controlling)

Positive culture

(controlling)

Outputs (O)

Processes (P)
Selling
Distributing products
Displaying

Inputs (I)
Customer needs and
specifications

Manufacturers technical
capabilities

Suppliers (S)

(controlling)

Enjoy product
satisfaction with
reasonable price from the
perspective of target
customers

Strengthen customer
relationship with reliable
performance of supplier s
for product guarantee
(controlling)

(controlling)

Increasing customer
satisfaction with quality
products

Customers (C)

Figure 1

Areas of marketing
management (5Ps)

Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction

321

Integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into marketing management

Market research
Customer demographics
Trend of CSR and
considerations of external
environments
(planning, organising,
directing and controlling)

Appealing and ethical

promotional campaign
from design house

(planning, organising,
directing and controlling)

(planning)

(planning)

Promotion

Market research
Land price
Management of budget

Distribution network

Inputs (I)

Suppliers (S)

Place

(directing and
controlling)

Promotional mix

(controlling)

Successful promotional
campaign with word of
mouth

(controlling)

(organising, directing
controlling)

(controlling)

Increase customer
satisfaction with ethical,
informative and
appealing promotional
mix

(controlling)

Customers (C)
Increase customer
satisfaction with
accessibility and
convenience

Outputs (O)
Appropriate location for
product distribution to
increase customer reach

Processes (P)
Renovation and design

Figure 1

Areas of marketing
management (5Ps)

322
S.M-C. Yeung

Integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into marketing management (continued)

Using Six Sigma SIPOC for customer satisfaction

323

Limitation and discussion measuring marketing performance

The major finding of this paper is the use of systematic thinking of SIPOC in marketing
management for customer satisfaction. It was noted that establishing a metric of
5Ps Product, People, Price, Place and Promotion with SIPOC in Six Sigma undoubtedly
increases an awareness of marketers for the control points in marketing management.
However, SIPOC was only applied into one case study that limits the generalisation to
other potential areas as manufacturing and construction industries.
Besides, results of integrating SIPOC into marketing management as illustrated in
Figure 1 have not been investigated. As this paper is a conceptual one with a qualitative
case study, there is a need to collect quantitative data from marketers about the
effectiveness of implementing SIPOC into marketing activities. Information covered
should not be only on customers, but also on employees, influencers and shareholders.
Detailed criteria for evaluating marketing performance of SIPOC need to be developed.
The criteria for measuring marketing performance also needs to be discussed financial
or non-financial, achieving goals of an organisation or differentiating from competitors in
the market.

Conclusion

With an introduction of the importance of social responsibility in marketing management;

and an illustration of integrating SIPOC of Six Sigma into marketing metrics, marketers
shall develop a basic concept that managing and evaluating marketing performance
should be systematic and follow a path of:

considering the needs of stakeholders in the society during the different stages of
SIPOC;

collecting factual information with stakeholder feedback as inputs of marketing

activities into SIPOC diagram before launching a marketing campaign;

applying management skills of planning, organising, directing and controlling into

reviewing, verifying and validating of marketing promotional activities;

measuring marketing activities with organisational objectives and

adjusting marketing activities if the outcome is not satisfactory.

If marketers can develop a social responsibility and quality mindset in marketing

management; and academic marketing professionals can develop marketing students with
systematic thinking with the use of SIPOC, it is believed that marketers can serve
customers in the highest good for the benefit of the society.

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S.M-C. Yeung

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