Benchmarking Resources On The Web

Benchmarking Resources On The Web

Benchmarking resources on the web
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Advantages of Benchmarking:
1. Change
By making explicit the competitors' standards that provide the organization with minimum standards of excellence and providing new ideas and better ways of doing things, benchmarking help place organizational focus on change and provides the direction for the change process.
2. New Paradigms
Very often, organizations set goals based on past trends and established internal patterns. Benchmarking helps remove such “paradigm blindness” and forces the organization to take a fresh approach to goal setting based on a broader perspective, including the external perspective, the most critical factor that drives customer expectations.
3. Performance Improvement
A primary advantage of benchmarking is that it sets the foundation of performance improvement aimed at enhancing competitiveness. By showing how to better competitors, benchmarking ensures the basic survival of the business.

Disadvantages of Benchmarking:
A big disadvantage of benchmarking is the danger of complacency and arrogance. Many organizations tend to relax after excelling beyond competitors' standards, allowing complacency to develop. The realization of having become the industry leader soon leads to arrogance, when considerable scope for further improvements remains.
Also, many organizations make the mistake of undertaking benchmarking as a stand-alone activity. Benchmarking is only a means to an end, and it is worthless if not accompanied by a plan to change.

Look for organizations with standards:
Peer organizations and competitors, or Best-practice organizations - those top performers.
Find them through:
Professional associations (find on the Internet)
Interviews (ask people for leads, especially from people who are experts in the field)
Research publications
Identify significant differences between your organization and your partner's: geography, climate, size, or market, for example. You...