Benchmarking

BENCHMARKING:

Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance of a company's products, services, or processes against those of another business considered to be the best industry, 'best in class'. The point of benchmarking is to identify internal opportunities for improvement. By studying companies with superior performance, breaking down what makes such superior performance possible, and then comparing those processes to how your business operates. You can implement changes that will yield significant improvements.

That might mean tweaking a product's features to more closely match a competitor's offering, or changing the scope of services you offer, or installing a new customer relationship management(CRM) system to enable more personalized communication with customers.

There are two basic kinds of improvement oppurtunities: continuous and dramatic. Continuous improvement is incremental, involving only small adjustments to reap advances. Dramatic improvement can only come about through reengineering the whole internal work process.

STEP-BY-STEP BENCHMARKING

Benchmarking is a simple, but detailed, five-step process:

• Choose a product, service, or internal department to benchmark.
• Determine which best-in-class companies you should benchmark against, which organizations you'll compare your business.
• Gather information on their internal performance, or metrics.
• Compare the data from both organizations to identify gaps in your company's performance.
• Adopt the processes and policies in place within the best-in-class performers.

Benchmarking will point out what changes will make the most difference, but it's up to you to actually put them in place.

In order to benchmark anything, you need to have quantitative data available to study. That means breaking down internal processes to calculate performance metrics. Quantify everything, because only quantifiable information can be accurately compared.

BENEFITS

In addition to helping companies become more efficient and profitable, benchmarking has other benefits, too, such as:

• Improving employee understanding of cost structures and internal processes •
• Encouraging team-building and cooperation in the interest of becoming more competitive
• Enhancing familiarity with key performance metrics and oppurtunities for improvement company-wide

In essence, benchmarking helps employees understand how one small piece of a company's processes or products can be the key to major sucess, just as one employee's contributions can lead to big win.

REQUIREMENTS

Benchmark with presently available cars in the market for the following case.

Mr. D.S. Pughazhyendhii is a married man who lives in Bangalore which is a highly crowded city. His Family comprises five members including his wife, five-year-old boy, his father, and his mother. He visits his native place Madurai which is 500kms away from Bangalore once in a month. Also, he will be using his car to commute to his office. His budget falls between 8 to 10 lakhs on road. Please suggest to him with options so that he will buy a good car for his family.

Note: Pughazhyendhii is fond of big cars

In my view,

I would suggest diesel engine vehicle, SUVs and sedans is preferrable.

1. Tata Nexon
2. Hyundai Venue
3. Maruthi Suzuki Vitara Brezza
4. Kia Sonet

TATA NEXON:

Pros:

• Best in class safety package
• Powerful engines(petrol&diesel)
• Ride and feels like a big vehicles

Cons:

• Quality of plastic inside the cabin
• sluggish infotainment
• Slightly hard ride

HYUNDAI VENUE:

Pros:

• Ease of driving on offer
• Three different engine options
• Feature loaded

Cons:

• This not as big as rivals
• No diesel automatic on offer
• 1.2 petrol is weak on punch

MARUTHI SUZUKI VITARA BREZZA:

Pros:

• Peppy & efficinet 1.5 petrol
• Good value for money
• Neutral ride easy to drive

Cons:

• No more diesel option
• Rivals offer more space
• Design is not attractive as before

KIA SONNET:

Pros:

• The Sonet does offer gizmos like ventilated seats, 10 inch touch screen, all led headlamp set up and lot others
• Sonet features has more advance features
• It has more attractive design

Cons:

• The mileage of the car is not good
• The safety ratings are average
• leg room space is less

COMPARSION:

MODELS/ SPECIFICATIONS	TATA NEXON	HYUNDAI VENUE	MARUTHI SUZUKI VITARA BREZZA	KIA SONNET
ARAI Mileage	21.5kmpl	18.14kmpl	18.76kmpl	21.7kmpl
Engine Displacement	1497	998	1462	1469
Max Torque(nm@rpm)	260Nm@1500-2750rpm	171.6Nm@1500-4000rpm	138Nm@4400rpm	250Nm@1500-2750rpm
Transmission type	Automatic	Automatic	Automatic	Automatic
Fuel Tank Capacity	44	45	48	45
Max power(bhp@rpm)	108.5bhp@4000rpm	118.35bhp@6000rpm	103.26bhp@6000rpm	113.42bhp@4000rpm
Seating Capacity	5	5	5	5
Boot Space	350	350	328	392
Safety	16.06/17	12.51/17	4 stars NCAP rating	3 stars NCAP rating

CONCLUSION:

I would suggest Tata nexon for mr. D.S. Pughazhyendhi family, Nexon is excellent offering which is safest car in its segment. It is also value for money product with class leading features.