benchmarking

Y-Negocios

2022

We explain what benchmarking is in quality control and what its objectives are. In addition, we tell you what are the steps to do it.

The benchmarking identifies what is due to the success of competitors and allows it to be reproduced.

What is the benchmarking?

The benchmarking is a technique of measurement and comparison of performance of the Business, which consists of finding and comparing certain variables, indicators and coefficients (called benchmarks in English) that are representative of the quality of the performance of the competition, and try to emulate or adopt them within an organization, in order to learn from them. success of others.

The origin of the term benchmarking (always written in italics, since it is a Anglicism) goes back to the surveyors and Anglo-Saxon surveyors of the 19th century, who made marks in stone to indicate the levels of the land and in each of them they placed an angle iron, as a bench (“bench” in English), to set up a leveling bar and make sure the measurement was correct.

This practice was taken as a metaphor for the business comparison in the QA, beginning in the 1960s, when the first successful organizations dedicated to quality management. The popularization of the term took place almost 20 years later, largely thanks to its adoption by the Xerox company, and since then it has been used in different contexts, such as in the public sector and in others outside the organizational world.

In short, the benchmarking It is a method of continuous improvement of organizations, which proposes the search and incorporation of existing good practices outside or even inside the company, especially in what has to do with processes and methodologies.

 See also: Business management

Objectives of the benchmarking

The purpose of benchmarking is to identify the company's improvement guidelines, based on specialized measurement and comparison with other companies or sectors. Put more simply, its purpose is to compare the processes and functions of the organization with those that have been successful in other companies, to offer a greater and more detailed perspective of the positive changes and innovations that could be made.

It is a technique that provides the necessary guidance to organizations to know what or how to change, which is essential to adapt to competitive markets.

Importance of benchmarking

The benchmarking allows to search for new sources of competitiveness.

The benchmarking it is an innovative and useful technique not so much for the comparison it proposes, but for the measurement of the impact that said comparisons can have on the behavior of organizations.

It is an ideal method for tracking, formulating and copying (all within the law, of course) the successes of other companies, whether they are competitors or even from another productive branch. This allows the relocation and often freeing up of resources within the company, in order to move towards more efficient and look for new sources of competitiveness.

Types benchmarking

Essentially, the benchmarking can be:

  • benchmarking functional. It focuses on the comparison and improvement of specific processes within the company, locating the best possible practices, operations and functions.
  • benchmarking competitive.It focuses on comparing the general and specific indicators of the company with those of the leading organizations in its sector, as a study of the competition.
  • benchmarking internal. It focuses on the internal aspects of the organization, with a view to identifying and replicating the good practices relevant to one area, to allocate them to other areas or to different business units of the company.

Steps to do benchmarking

According to the American Robert C. Camp (1935-), responsible for the processes of benchmarking of Xerox, all process of benchmarking must be done according to the following steps:

  • Planning and collection of data. It is the initial phase that consists of planning the study of benchmarking, for which it is essential to identify what aspect of the organization will be studied (what, who and how) and what is the product of the business function. The processes of the company must be documented and its information systems must be verified. evaluation of performance, to, from all this, identify comparable companies, based on the type of benchmarking to which one aspires. Once this is determined, you can proceed to choose a data collection method and a set of available sources.
  • Analysis of data. It consists of studying what was collected in the previous step, to determine the current performance gap: the distance between the goal desired and the present situation. This procedure must occur together with a careful understanding of the company's processes.
  • fixation of objectives. It consists of planning the path and effectively communicating the objectives to be achieved to the different areas of the company involved. The latter is key, since it will take your cooperation, commitment and support to make the changes.
  • Establishment of functional goals. It consists of the translation of the findings of the benchmarking into functional and applicable goals, that is, concrete changes in methods and practices, which can then be carried out, hand in hand with periodic and controlled measurement that allows an evaluation of achievement.
  • Monitoring of the process and recalibration of the benchmarks. It consists of making management reports that reflect the success of the process and allow updating the benchmarks initials regarding the changing market. In this way, the process of updating and continuous improvement can be institutionalized and guarantee the maturity of the organization within its specific field.

Examples of benchmarking

Here are two simple examples of application of the benchmarking:

  • First example. An appliance store realizes that its competitor, despite being in a worse geographical location, is monopolizing the public in the area. Management decides to apply a process of benchmarking to assess the preference of the public, and invests in a set of surveys to determine the most attractive areas of the competing business, which turn out to be: 1) the presentation of the products, 2) the modern methods of payment and 3) the credit plans offered. These indicators were broken down and transformed into short-term objectives.

These three indicators are then compared with those of the initial store and a specialist is hired in marketing to redesign the windows, print new promotional material and plan the relaunch of the store. In addition, it invests in the modernization of collection devices and negotiates new installment credit plans with a local bank. In this way, the relaunch of the store is successful and its sales exceed the previous margins, since it also has a better location than the competition.

  • Second example. A local publisher begins to lose sales massively, compared to a transnational company just-arrived.Despite the fact that their public is loyal and constant, sales tend to fall, so they make a benchmarking focused on the product, and determine that: 1) the competing books have better and more attractive designs; and 2) competing books use cheaper paper and therefore cost less, although they are less durable. These indicators are transformed into medium-term goals for change.

So, the publisher decides to invest in new designs, realizing that their books are outdated for the new sensitivities of the young public. They relaunch collections, redesign covers and, preserving the traditional quality of their products, invest in a pocket collection with cheap paper. Thus, they manage to capture both the young and traditional audiences, and their sales recover volume again.

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