Can’t comment on the financial market aspects with any confidence since it isn’t my forte, but wanted to pitch in my two cents about the shortcomings of business practices and methodologies such as six sigma. I’ve only worked on a couple of projects as a six sigma green belt, but have been fortunate enough to realize early on in my career that six sigma can’t be adopted as an enterprise-wide business strategy, contrary to what its often marketed to be.
The sad truth is that once you master a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail... and that’s the case with many six sigma evangelists who fail to realize or admit to the fundamental limits of the methodology. The fact remains that six Sigma is not relevant for developing innovative products or devising long-term corporate strategies. Even companies like Motorola and IBM where six sigma methodologies used to be followed as a religion until the mid to late nineties realized this – albeit a little too late some might contend.
Case in point – while IBM was focused on improving process defects and product quality, they failed to realize that they were building the wrong products. While they were incrementally improving outdated networking products, Cisco was pioneering new products on its way to become a powerhouse in that industry... while IBM was looking at ways to reduce errors in forecasting PC sales, Dell was creating new make-to-order business processes that required little forecasting to begin with.
I guess it does come down to short-termism and functional myopia that can be attributed to the misuse of business practices and methodologies. With a process like Six sigma, no wonder many refer to it as Sick sigma.