North America is ahead of us Europeans in some ways. Even Japan, although it is currently in a real crisis. This is not necessarily true for products but especially for management concepts. Lean Production, Reengineering, Kaizen, Time Based Management or Shareholder Value are prominent representatives of a long line of overseas management innovations.

However, European companies were not only enthusiastic about the teachings of Americans; There is often skepticism, sometimes open resistance. With the label "Does not fit on local conditions" or "It's just a fashion wave" so many consultants fail to implement the new concepts usefully in the company. Regrettable, because it contains many good aspects.

Looking back, the concept of quality management systems is just a concept that came primarily from Europe and went around the world. There has been and continues to be a misuse of this concept. It was very well suited to build barriers to market entry, because too rigid regulations later led to more and more bureaucratization.

While in America - where the willingness to make radical changes is more pronounced - every trend is followed by a counter-trend that turns the pendulum in the other direction, but whose thrust completely eradicates the criticisms of the previous system, something else happens to us. If the consultants from the US East Coast now prescribe a "Balanced Scorecard" after the pronounced "shareholder value", Europe shows constancy to the bitter end here - ISO 9001 revision 2008. If new, then we complement it with other well-known ones Systems such as UMS, SCC, VDA, SMS, KMS in addition to industry-specific requirement catalogs and call it then "Integrated Management System" IMS.

To reuse well-tried but carefully modifying it can be an immense strength if we Europeans get it right.