RETURN TO TOOLS:
Benchmarking:
Benchmarking is the process of determining, for a given area of activity, which
organisations are 'the best' - those who set the standards for performance and
quality, and what are those standards.
The aim is to compare your own organisation to these 'best companies' and then
to compare - structures, processes, procedures, relationships, levels of investment,
etc. Alongside this is the aim to motivate those within the organisation to
strive to achieve those same high standards.
The aim is not to 'copy' the benchmark organisations, but to learn from them
and to adopt and adapt elements of their organisation only as far as they can
fit within your own structure, culture and broad strategy. Thus benchmarking
is often a component of a wider improvement process such as business process
re-engineering or quality improvement.
Simply attempting to analyse what makes a good company good - even when that
company is in another industry - is a useful exercise.
Benchmarking assists in the setting of what must be 'reasonable' targets -
after all, if another organisation has achieved them, they must be reasonable.
And having external comparators means that internal measurement becomes much
more useful. It becomes much easier to establish the difference between competence
and excellence.
Information which is freely available in the public domain can be useful as
a starting point, but the level of detail is probably inappropriate for really
effective benchmarking analysis. Thus, the usual approach is to share data with
another organisation - on a mutual help basis. There is now a number of benchmarking
'clubs' both within and across certain industry sectors where members collectively
pool data - derived to a common measurement methodology - to act as collective
benchmarks for the group.
It is important to choose the right organisations to benchmark against - they
should be clearly the same kind of organisation (or, if not, the differences
and their effect on benchmarked activities identified). It is equally important
to identify the right activities to benchmark - those that align with strategic
aims and objectives.
It is usually best to benchmark against some sub-set of a total system so that
causes and effects can be more easily identified and followed. A complete system
can thus be addressed in phases with each process being benchmarked and improved
in turn.
See : The American Productivity & Quality Center http://www.apqc.org/
See : The Benchmarking Network http://benchmarkingnetwork.com/
RETURN TO TOOLS: |
