Benchmarking

 by Ben Boldt, Founder and Lead Consultant  

Visionary Solution Resources, Inc.  

Benchmarking isn’t all that new.  Have you ever observed other people, their style of dress, how they present themselves or act?  Well, if you have, you have benchmarked.

Simply put, benchmarking is observing and using the information gained from others – people, books, periodicals OR companies - to change what you are doing, hopefully, for the better.

Taking what has been learned and adapting it at a company to improve processes, customer services and profitability has become the subject known as benchmarking.

Comparing your business process and operating performance against the work practices of others provides the “benchmark” on where you are OR where you need to be to improve against the competition.

Benchmarking is integral to any process improvement effort, since the “benchmarks” or metrics need to be to create a starting point and the future metric value to identify where you need to be at some future point in time.

The first question that needs to be answered is – “ What are we trying to do ?”  Without a clear understanding of the answer, there will be to many opportunities for improvement and not enough resources to accomplish anything.  No results lead to a diluted effort that will conclude in a failed improvement effort.

One needs to identify and prioritize the processes that need to be improved to achieve the targeted – and strategically important – goals and objectives.  The benchmarking initiative must have well defined objectives based on the strategy of the company.

Much of what has been written focuses benchmarking efforts on the “best practices” of industry leading companies.  There are some conflicts created with this approach.

The first is that no one outside the "best practices" company really knows what the “best practices” actually entail.  What is seen from the outside is the result of the practices, NOT the practice themselves.

Second, the concept of “improvement” is built on the philosophy of “always better, NEVER best”.  The term “best practices” implies they cannot be improved upon, otherwise how could they be “best”. 

Third, and perhaps most important, each organization needs to determine what will work for them.  No two organizations have the same resources or capabilities.  Knowing your starting point and working to achieve YOUR goals is what really matters.  Just as in sports, you have to play YOUR game, not another team’s. 

An early consideration in any benchmarking initiative will be to use a consultant or go it alone.  There isn’t a right or wrong answer to this.  An experienced consultant should be able to “jump start” your benchmarking project by providing the “having been there” experience from other organizations and situations.   

Frequently, the do it yourselfers have to many things on their plate already and one more thing – no matter how important – doesn’t get the attention it needs to be successful.  Also, in the early stages of the project, data gathering, interpretation and cross company communication is required.  These efforts – along with “as needed” mentoring – of the internal project leader are usually the strengths of the outside consultant and provide the foundation for the projects success.