Benchmarking is the process of comparing the cost, cycle time, productivity, or quality of a specific process or method to another that is widely considered to be an industry standard or best practice.
Essentially, benchmarking provides a snapshot of the performance of your business and helps you understand where you are in relation to a particular standard. The result is often a business case for making changes in order to make improvements.
The term benchmarking was first used by cobblers to measure ones feet for shoes. They would place the foot on a 'bench' and mark to make the pattern for the shoes.
Benchmarking is most used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.
Also referred to as 'best practice benchmarking' or 'process benchmarking', it is a process used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adopt best practice, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance.
Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to challenge their practices.
Types of benchmarking
Process benchmarking
- The initiating firm focuses its observation and investigation of business processes with a goal of identifying and observing the best practices from one or more benchmark firms. Activity analysis will be required where the objective is to benchmark cost and efficiency; increasingly applied to back-office processes where outsourcing may be a consideration.
Financial benchmarking
- Performing a financial analysis and comparing the results in an effort to assess your overall competitiveness.
Performance benchmarking
- Allows the initiator firm to assess their competitive position by comparing products and services with those of target firms.
Product benchmarking
- The process of designing new products or upgrades to current ones. This process can sometimes involve reverse engineering which is taking apart competitors' products to find strengths and weaknesses.
Strategic benchmarking
- Involves observing how others compete. This type is usually not industry specific meaning it is best to look at other industries.
Functional benchmarking
- A company will focus its benchmarking on a single function in order to improve the operation of that particular function. Complex functions such as Human Resources, Finance and Accounting and Information and Communication Technology are unlikely to be directly comparable in cost and efficiency terms and may need to be disaggregated into processes to make valid comparison.
(source: management programmes)
