Topics
KAIZUNO® strengthens organizations and their people from within.
A family business is planning a new building. It involves financing, sustainability and digitalization. Project management brings together planning, trades and deadlines. Many topics and people have to work together.
KAIZUNO helps you tackle the initiative as a whole and draw on the knowledge of the people who do the work on site. Especially when millions are at stake.
A universal approach for every topic.
With the five KAIZUNO steps, you can tackle any topic that matters to an organization. Here is a selection—some have their own page with more background.
Where we want to go
Direction and future
Develop the strategy
Where do we want to go—and what do we focus on to get there?
Find the right structure
Who is responsible for what, and who decides what?
Secure the succession
Who will carry on—and how do we hand over responsibility and relationships in good time?
Build strong partnerships
With whom can we achieve more together—and how does that become reliable cooperation?
Live shared values
What do we stand for—and how does it show in our culture every day?
Who we work for
Customers and markets
Delight and keep customers
What do the people who buy from us value—and what makes them stay and recommend us?
Win new customers
How do the right people notice us—and choose us?
Achieve better prices
How do we calculate soundly—and show the value of our work?
Develop new offerings
What will be needed tomorrow—and what ideas for it are already in our team?
Clarity before going abroad
Does the new market fit us—strategically, structurally and culturally?
Who we do it with
People and leadership
Strengthen leadership
What do we expect from our leaders—and how do they keep developing?
Talk to each other constructively
How do we speak clearly—when delegating, giving criticism, negotiating and when there is conflict?
Attract and keep skilled staff
How do we find the right people, onboard them well—and make sure they stay?
Secure and pass on knowledge
How does the know-how of our most experienced people stay in the organization—and how does everyone keep learning?
Stay healthy and productive
How do we protect and strengthen ourselves as a team—physically and mentally?
How we work
Processes and technology
Improve processes
How does our work run smoothly—simpler, well coordinated and, where it makes sense, automated?
Deliver projects reliably
How do we plan and steer so that schedule, budget and result all work out?
Benefit from your certification (e.g., ISO)
How do ISO 9001, 14001 or 45001 become everyday practice—with real benefit for the organization?
Work more simply with digital tools
Which tools make our work easier—and how do we introduce them together?
Use AI sensibly
Where does it take work off our hands—and what rules do we need for it?
What we work with
Finances and resources
Cut costs
Where can we save without losing performance or our future?
Secure liquidity
How do we keep enough room to maneuver—even when payments are late?
Know early where we stand
Which key figures help us steer—and how do we decide based on them?
Invest and finance wisely
Is the investment worth it—in a building, for example—and how do we finance it soundly?
Secure and save resources
How do we secure materials, energy and supplies—and use them sparingly?
What protects and sustains us
Safety and responsibility
Become crisis-proof
Which risks could hit us—and how are we prepared for them?
Strengthen cybersecurity
How do we protect ourselves against attacks—and stay able to act in an emergency?
Work safely
How do we prevent accidents and fires—and does everyone know what to do if it happens?
Meet requirements calmly
How do we keep legal requirements, inspections and documentation under control—and keep time for the actual work?
Do business sustainably
How do we act responsibly toward the environment and people—and benefit from it?
Want to assess the whole organization or individual areas? For that, we have comprehensive 360-degree assessments: you see where you stand as a whole—with a focus on future development, sustainability, quality or Business Excellence, for example. More on Excellence for Everyone
Don’t see your topic?
Sustainability that pays off.
The German word for sustainability comes from the forest: a forester cuts no more wood than grows back—otherwise his grandchildren will have no forest. The idea is that simple, and family businesses have lived it for generations: run the business today so that it still holds tomorrow. What has become complicated is something else—the proof: ratings, supply-chain questionnaires, reporting duties.
What if the report came about along the way—while the work in the departments gets better?
“With KAIZUNO, our sustainability team got the structured ESG approach we needed. A well-founded, honest assessment with internal insights and useful external reports.”
Marina Rudelgast · Corporate Development · Ihre Volksbank eG Neckar Odenwald Main Tauber, a German cooperative bank
The full story
When it comes to sustainability, many businesses feel as if they were in court: guilty until proven innocent. Others throw themselves entirely into green—and overlook that, when in doubt, the world decides with its wallet. The forester does neither. He lives from the forest, and he preserves it—the art lies in balance. Economic, ecological, social: it has to fit together. What risk lies in the supply chain? What pays for itself, what doesn’t? Those are the questions that count.
That is why KAIZUNO turns the logic around: the departments don’t work for the report—sustainability works for the departments. At the Volksbank, the team took the sustainability promise of the Volksbank cooperative banks apart and held it up against its own processes and departments: How do we market green investments so that they reach their target group? How do we reward businesses that operate sustainably? And how do we show business customers that sustainability saves real money—and makes them more independent, in the supply chain too? That is how a promise becomes daily practice.
And the assessment shows where the real lever is: within its own walls, a bank can save paper—but through its customers it moves many times more. The same goes for a chamber of commerce with its hundreds of members.
The bank did this with the 360-degree assessment: the team looks at the whole organization—ecologically, socially and economically, from the perspective of customers, employees, partners, society and decision-makers. Each department is asked only about its own topics—as equals, alongside day-to-day work. That turns people who are affected into people who take part.
The basis is the SME Sustainability Roadmap, co-developed by the Biel-Seeland Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland and co-funded by the Canton of Bern. The expertise comes from Prof. Dr. Alexander Herzner of Landshut University of Applied Sciences—a professor of sustainability who himself works at a Volksbank. The roadmap covers the overall picture—and the individual topics: circular economy, sustainable offerings and procurement, saving resources, occupational safety.
The team assesses its own organization—and the reports come about along the way, right up to the finished sustainability report. But the report is not the goal: it is what remains when the departments’ work gets better. At the Volksbank, the auditor signed off on it.
Excellence that isn’t a sport for experts.
An excellence assessment is one of the most valuable things an organization can treat itself to—whether for the national excellence awards of Germany (Ludwig-Erhard-Preis), Austria (Staatspreis Unternehmensqualität) or Switzerland (ESPRIX Excellence Suisse): honest feedback from external professionals who have nothing to sell, and official recognition that counts. The usual route has stood the test of decades: a small team writes the application, leadership learns the model or framework, the interviews are carefully prepared. Anyone who goes through it learns a lot.
But what if you could see it—and do it—differently?
“We were able to involve our entire team—kitchen, service, management—in the excellence assessment. We achieved 4-star recognition without extra paperwork.”
Pascal Schröder · Haus Ohrbeck, an education center in Germany
The full story
At Haus Ohrbeck, the application wasn’t written by a small team—everyone thought it through, from management to the kitchen. That makes the road to the award a win in itself: the whole team reflects on its own work, not just the writing group.
Nobody likes to put their shortcomings into an application—which is why many read like marketing brochures. In KAIZUNO, the team first enters everything as it is seen internally: strengths and potential alike. The system carries only the strengths into the application. Finding the potential is the assessors’ job. That way the team stays honest without running itself down.
The conversations with the assessors then go differently—more as equals: no “I hope I don’t say anything wrong,” no feeling of sitting in an audit. Everyone already knows their own view—and has prepared, in their own way. That challenges the assessors more, too. Kliniken Valens, a group of clinics in Switzerland, practiced with AI-simulated interviews; Sanatorium Kilchberg used e-learning and an interview simulator—and in 2023 received the “Recognised by EFQM, 3 Stars” award.
Less time is lost, too: the application comes about along the way, from the assessment. Afterwards, you can compare what the assessors found—and what you found yourselves. Which model you are recognized under remains your choice—the major awards in the German-speaking countries are deliberately open to different models, and so is KAIZUNO.
And what if it becomes a habit? Then you don’t assess yourselves every three years because proof is due—but regularly, in small ways too. That is how excellence is meant to work. The assessment then becomes what it should be: something natural. A good conversation about your own work—and recognition for what you have long been living.
For everyone who wants to go deeper: with Excellence for Everyone, you develop your organization together with the people who know it and shape it.
Quotes translated from German.
