Benchmarking Activities

Many companies see benchmarking as a way of building their knowledge base and enhancing their overall level of performance, not just as a metrics and measurement activity. It is a way of moving from ‘doing more of the same’ to doing something better, even doing different things. Benchmarking is a discovery and learning process. It involves taking a systematic look outside your own industry, or sector, in search of practices that occur elsewhere, and questioning why and how these practices could be applied within your own organisation. Benchmarking can also be used as a way of helping the organisation stay ahead of its competitors – recognising that no matter how good you are there is always room for improvement.

Some of the steps in carrying out a successful benchmarking activity include:

• Identify an area of the business that requires improvement – this could be a business process or an HR process.

• Identify a network of people willing to share information on this process – this could be personal contacts, external consultancies, customers, strategic partners and business schools. Other sources of information include business libraries, company reports, business databases and websites and research companies.

• Make direct site visits – this enables you to gather data about actual practice, but also to explore lessons learnt on the journey. Both sorts of data are important for developing your own organisation.

• Develop a metric for assessing best practice – here what you are looking for is a way of quantifying best practice in the area that you are investigating. This may require working with business colleagues to identify and agree on performance criteria which are appropriate for your organisation in its current state.