Benchmarking: A Strategy for Marking the Business

Abstract

A best practice is a business function, process, or system that is considered superior to all other known methods. Successfully identifying and applying best practices can save money, eliminate redundancy, and enhance organizational effectiveness. A benchmark is a standard of performance. It allows organizations to discover where they stand in relation to others. By identifying, understanding, comparing, and adapting one's own organization with the outstanding practices and processes of others, an organization can target problem areas, best levels of performance, and solutions to improve results. Benchmarking is an improvement tool whereby a company measures its performance or
process against other companies' best practices. The kind of benchmarking you should undertake is dependent on one’s company's characteristics and circumstances. Benchmarking has to be seen to be integral to the business strategy and not just an add-on. It should be based on some kind of critical need. And benchmarking should be a continuous process in one’s organisation. This article is an attempt to highlight that how a benchmarking can be a strategy for marking the business.