Benchmarking
Benchmarking :-
Benchmarking is a process where you measure your company’s success against other similar companies to discover if there is a gap in performance that can be closed by improving your performance. Studying other companies can highlight what it takes to enhance your company’s efficiency and become a bigger player in your industry.
Benchmarking Process
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Planning
The first stage of benchmarking is the most important in the process. Planning includes highlighting what you want to improve, who you will benchmark yourself against, and how you envisage success. Only once this step has been completed will you be able to move onto the next step as the results of planning will focus on the information you need to collect and what success will look like.
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Collection of Information
After planning, benchmarking is about collecting information on your processes and how competitors do them. If you are looking to improve your customer service satisfaction rating you should understand the processes involved in the department, how calls and communication are dealt with, and also how it differs from your competition. Maybe you can talk to someone in another call center, or call the center directly to gain first-hand knowledge of their processes. At this point, it is important to gather as much information as possible.
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Analysis of Data
Once you feel you have all the information you can gather, you can start to plot it and begin to understand the shortcomings you may have. It is important to remember at this point in the process that no business is perfect and you must have an open mind to be able to analyze information objectively. Once findings start to be uncovered you can draft a report and start discussing the next steps to achieve better performance in this area.
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Action
Presenting findings to a department is never an easy thing, especially when you are proposing changes. Gathering and analyzing information is only worthwhile when you can implement changes and better the company in the process. Gaining buy-in from a department can involve concessions so make sure the MVP you present is accepted and will likely equate to the success highlighted in the planning stage.
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Monitoring
No plan is ever complete without monitoring results to determine how successful the plan has been. The implementation phase will have highlighted metrics and goals for success within a time frame so monitoring these is the only way of knowing the efficacy of the changes. Monitoring can be over a short or long period of time depending on the desired outcomes.
Benchmarking Examples
Process Benchmarking: This type of benchmarking helps you to better understand how your processes compare to others in your industry. By looking at other companies in the industry you can improve your processes to make them more efficient and cost-effective.
Strategic Benchmarking: Strategic benchmarking, similar to process benchmarking, is all about improving parts of your company through looking at others in the industry. Strategic benchmarking relates to strategy and how to create a strategy that will allow you to be more competitive in your area.
Performance Benchmarking: Performance benchmarking is the hardest process to improve as it involves learning about competitor performance metrics and procedures, and also making changes to processes within your business on the lower levels. Introducing new processes is a challenging action in any business as it requires buy-in from many different levels in the company. Performance benchmarking can uncover findings that might not be possible to implement in the business without creating a long-term change plan. These can also be the most effective and successful changes for a company.
|
Company |
Modal |
Fuel |
Mileage (Km/l) |
Price (Showroom ) |
|
Renault |
Kiger RX(O) MT(Dual Tone) |
Petrol |
19.1 |
8,47,990 |
|
Hyundai |
Venue S1.2 |
Petrol |
17.5 |
8,89,900 |
|
Maruti Suzuki |
Swift Vxi |
Petrol |
22.38 |
7,91,466 |
|
Tata |
Punch Pure Rhythm Pack MT |
Petrol |
18.9 |
7,82,373 |