I recently wrote an article on the popularity of 24 popular business improvement initiatives and ranked their popularity levels against each other. The data for this analysis was obtained from the Google Keyword Tools, which tracks how often a search term was used per month for the last 12 months. Lean Six Sigma (LSS) ranked 6th in overall worldwide popularity as a Google search phrase for 2011 compared to the 23 other business improvement initiatives under investigation. Ever since 2004, interest in Lean is relatively stable with slight ups and downs but interest in Six Sigma is down 60%. However, the combination of these 2 techniques (LSS) showed a 2.7-fold increase in popularity since 2004. Google data does not go back further than 2004.
Determining the Popularity of the search phrase “Lean Six Sigma”
To find out the average number of people who actually searched for Lean Sigma every month over the last 12 months, go to the Google Keyword Tool Box. In that Tool Box, click on the Google Keyword Tool and fill in the information as shown below in the top keyword entry box. After selecting “Search”, the results will be given as shown below. The average monthly number of worldwide searches for the phrase “Lean Six Sigma” was 246,000 for the “Business & Industrial” category. That search was initiated 90,500 times per month just from the USA (Local Monthly Searches).
Creating Trend Charts for the Popularity of the Search Phrase “Lean Six Sigma”
Google Insights for Search offers access to Google search data all the way back to 2004, worldwide or for specific countries with Google’s charting capability of their data online. Those charts can also be broken down by different categories. The following Google Insights for Search chart was created for “all business categories” for the key phrase “Lean Six Sigma”. The numbers on the Y-Axis for the time chart and the bar chart numerical labels shown below are just relative numbers and are not an indication of actual search numbers. The trends on Google charts are “relative” trends, which compares the popularity of LSS with other search terms.
The above trend chart shows that interest in LSS rose 2.7-fold from 2004 to 2007 and stayed stable from that point to today, January 7th, 2012. The apparent dip in January, 2012 is because the first few slow interest days in 2012 are being used by the chart to represent the whole month of January. The end of January will be a better time to redo this chart with updated data from the whole month of January.
The above bar chart, below the trend chart, shows that Singapore led the worldwide interest in LSS as a search phrase, followed by India, Netherlands, USA, Ireland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia and Australia. The darker the region on the world map, the higher the relative popularity of Lean Six Sigma as a search word. CAUTION, this rank can be deceiving because it does not show the rank based on the actual total numbers of searches but rather on the relative popularity of that search term compared to other search terms for those countries.
For example, Singapore is listed on the top spot but the Google key word tool tells us that Singapore only initiated a monthly average of 1,900 searches over the last 12 months. The USA is ranked in 4th spot on the above chart but it initiated a monthly average of 90,500 searches over the last 12 months. These top 10 countries on the above bar chart accounted for only 47% of the actual search volume for the key phrase for Lean Six Sigma, per data gathered by the Google Keyword Tool. You would have to initiate a separate analysis for each country individually with that tool to get actual country search numbers per month.
To keep the rise in Lean Six Sigma popularity in perspective, “Lean” as a Google key word was still 20 times more popular than “Lean Six Sigma” was in 2011. “Six Sigma” was 4 times more popular than “Lean Six Sigma” was in 2011 but LSS is on the rise while its 2 source business initiatives were either stable (Lean) or in decline (Six Sigma) since 2004. The following graph shows the relative popularity of Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma on one Google Insights for Search graph. Although the chart shows “relative” trends of the data compared to other search terms, it is fair to compare the 3 curves against each other to evaluate their relative popularity.
Average Monthly Number of "Lean Six Sigma" Google Searches for 2011
I used the Google Keyword tool to get the actual average monthly number of "Lean Six Sigma" Google searches for 2011 for every country in the world. This data was used to create the true numerical ranked search interest by country (see chart below) and not the relative popularity of a search term given in the “Google Insights for Search” bar graph. The top 34 countries of the world shown on the bar graph below account for 96.8% of all Google search volume for the search term: “Lean Six Sigma”. According to the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK, there are 250 recognized countries in the world as of January, 2012. Otherwise stated, about 13.6% of the world’s countries account for 96.8% of the world’s interest in Lean Six Sigma, via Google internet searches in 2011.
In the above chart, China and Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China) were combined. Google separates them in their search data.
Trend Chart for Web Searchers interested in “Lean Six Sigma Training”
It is one thing to seek information about a topic on the web but possibly a very different level of seriousness when one seeks information about “training” on a certain topic. This does not imply that someone is actually going to sign up for the training but it does show that the searcher is willing to learn about how to be trained on a topic and not just be become quickly informed on a topic via information or a few articles on the web.
The worldwide number of searches for “Lean Six Sigma Training” was 9,900 per month for 2011, which was only 4% of the search volume for “Lean Six Sigma” as a search phrase. However, during this same period of rising interest in Lean Six Sigma Training, worldwide interest in the general search word “training” dropped 40% between 2004 and the present day. The trend chart below compares search interest in 3 different search phrases as labeled on the chart.
Trend Chart for Web Searchers interested in “Lean Six Sigma Certification”
Seeking information on the web about LSS training and certification are almost synonymous, yet different. Someone seeking certification might be considered a more serious search than someone just seeking training in a topic but that is open for interpretation and debate. The chart below shows the worldwide interest in three different key phrases.
Keeping this in perspective, the worldwide number of searches for “Lean Six Sigma Certification” was 6,600 per month for 2011, which was only 2.7% of the search volume for the search term “Lean Six Sigma”. During this same period of rising interest in Lean Six Sigma Certification, worldwide interest in the general search word “Certification” dropped 33% between 2004 and the present day.
Summary
Lean Six Sigma has gained popularity as a hybrid problem solving technique, worldwide, with hot spot countries showing interest and many other countries showing little interest. The rise in popularity of LSS and sustained interest during bad economic times might hint that it is being perceived as a tool set and methodology that is useful to companies in good and in bad times. It is also worthwhile training for many professionals to pursue due to the increasing number of jobs that require a minimum level of knowledge on the topic as a prerequisite.
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