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Case Study

AXA way: The pursuit of excellence through quality of service

By John R. Weeks, Suzanne Weeks and Jean-Pierre Baillot

10 pages

June 2009

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Reference: IMD-4-0310

By 2005, AXA had become one of the world’s largest and most successful insurance companies, but Claude Brunet, Member of the Management Board, in charge of Transversal Operations, Communication, Marketing and Human Resources, believed that to achieve its ambitions the company was going to have to become much more customer focused. AXA Way, a culture change program that included many elements of Six Sigma philosophy and methodology, was the spearhead of this change. The case describes the AXA Way program, the challenges of its implementation, and how AXA overcame those challenges.

Learning Objective

Understand how to manage the culture change necessary to improve customer service using Six Sigma. Six Sigma is sometimes seen as a technical change, as just a methodology, but change in attitude and mindset–in culture–are required for Six Sigma to succeed. Understand how Six Sigma can be successfully adopted in a service industry.

Keywords

Change Management, Six Sigma, Culture Change, Customer Services, Insurance, Organizational Behavior

Settings

World/global
2005

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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