Selling up can be tough. If you believe that your organization could benefit from Kaizen software, but your boss (or whoever has to approve the investment) hasn’t quite arrived at that conclusion, you are in a frustrating spot. We’d like to help. We spend a lot of time talking to customers about where they find the most value in Kaizen software and they’ve made a pretty compelling case for applying a technology solution to the challenge of improvement. Here’s what they’ve told us about how they have benefited.

Maybe one or more of these reasons will push your team over the tipping point.

Keep Kaizen Top of Mind

Kaizen is practiced by some of the most successful companies in the world, but not every company that turns to the approach benefits from it. When Kaizen fails to take hold, it is usually because it doesn’t get the necessary attention to keep it alive. Kaizen software helps with active alerts and notifications that keep people engaged with improvement work even as they tend to everyday responsibilities and emergencies.

Reinforce the Importance of Kaizen

I heard someone say recently that budgets are actually values documents. That’s true for governments, families, and companies. If something is important, you invest in the tools needed to support it. When people see that the executive team is allocating part of the budget to Kaizen software, they will know that leadership is serious and committed to the approach.

Achieve Consistency

Kaizen software helps unify the organization around one way of managing and measuring improvement activities. Rather than department silos, which can be hard to cross, Kaizen becomes an organization-wide way of doing business. This makes it easier for leaders to assess the health of Kaizen. It strengthens a common culture and it provides a language for improvement work that everyone understands.

Form a Repository of Knowledge

Perhaps one of the most underrated benefits of Kaizen software is the fact that it becomes a repository of all of the organization’s past improvement efforts. Based on this tribal knowledge, teams can build on what has worked in the past and avoid what isn’t. Valuable information is not lost when people change roles or leave the company.

Align Goals

Whether your organization practices a formal strategic direction setting methodology, such as Hoshin Kanri, or a less formal practice it is important to ensure that everyone has the same set of priorities and is working toward common goals. Kaizen software provides visibility into the objectives of each department, team, and individual. Improvement activities can be grouped by the goals they are designed to achieve.

Develop an Early Warning System

Projects seem to stay on track until they don’t. Often by the time leaders are made aware of challenges during an improvement project, it is too late to right the ship. Deadlines are missed, money is wasted, and morale gets worse. Kaizen software helps avoid this by allowing for visual management of all improvement work. Managers and executives can quickly see when forward momentum is stalled and jump in to remove roadblocks or provide additional resources if needed.

Measure Impact

The easiest way to keep employees and executives alike excited about Kaizen is to document the impact it has on the organization. Kaizen software allows for impact reports that measure success in the metrics that matter to the company. Impact can be calculated and tracked over time in terms of cost reduction, improved customer satisfaction, quicker time to market, fewer errors, increased revenue, or other critical key performance indicators for your company.

Increase Engagement with Recognition

One of the primary principles of Kaizen is respect for people. Leaders show respect by seeking out input from employees at every level of the organization. They also show respect by recognizing and rewarding the people who bring the best ideas to the table and work the hardest to implement and sustain positive change. Improvement software makes that easier by letting leaders track exactly who is involved in the most impactful projects. The best solutions offer improvement broadcasting so that everyone in the organization can be made aware of what their fellow employees are accomplishing.

Any one of these advantages would likely result in a positive ROI for Kaizen software. When taken together they represent a powerful case for providing a technology structure that will help the organization get the most out of its Kaizen efforts. Perhaps one or two will resonate with the decision makers on your team and you can get a big thumbs up.