Benchmarking

Benchmarking:-

Benchmarking is the competitive edge that allows organizations to adapt, grow and thrive through change. It’s a process used to measure the quality and performance of a company’s products, services and processes. It is a process of measuring key business metrics and practices and comparing them within business areas or against a competitor, industry peers or other companies around the world to understand how and where the organization needs to change in order to improve performance. These measurements don’t have much value on their own, that data needs to be compared against some sort of standard.

BENCHMARKING OBJECTIVE:-

• Determining how and where other companies are achieving higher performance levels than your company has been able to achieve.
• Comparing the competition’s processes and strategies against your own.
• Using the information you gather from your analyses and comparisons to implement changes that will improve your company’s performance, products, and services.

BENCHMARKING PROCEDURE:-

1. Considerations

• Before an organization can achieve the full benefits of benchmarking, its own processes must be clearly understood and under control.
• Benchmarking studies require significant investments of manpower and time, so management must champion the process all the way through, including being ready and willing to make changes based on what is learned.
• Too broad a scope dooms the project to failure. A subject that is not critical to the organization’s success won’t return enough benefits to make the study worthwhile.
• Inadequate resources can also doom a benchmarking study by underestimating the effort involved or inadequate planning. The better you prepare, the more efficient your study will be.

2. Plan

• Define a tightly focused subject of the benchmarking study. Choose an issue critical to the organization’s success.
• Form a cross-functional team. During Steps 1 and 2, management’s goals and support for the study must be firmly established.
• Study your own process & know how the work and measurements of the output are done.
• Identify partner organizations that may have best practices like A2MAC1.

3. Collect

• Collect information directly from partner organizations. Collect both process descriptions and numeric data - using questionnaires, telephone interviews and/or site visits.

4. Analyze

• Compare the collected data, both numeric and descriptive.
• Determine gaps between your performance measurements and those of your partners.
• Determine the differences in practices that cause the gaps.

5. Adapt

• Develop goals for your organization’s process.
• Develop action plans to achieve those goals.
• Implement and monitor plans.

BENCHMARKING TYPES:-

1. Performance benchmarking involves gathering and comparing quantitative data (i.e., measuring key performance indicators). Performance benchmarking is usually the first step organizations take to identify performance gaps. What you need: Standard measures and a means of extracting, collecting, and analyzing that data. What you get: Data that informs decision making. This form of benchmarking is usually the first step organizations take to identify performance gaps.
2. Practice benchmarking involves gathering and comparing qualitative information about how an activity is conducted through people, processes and technology. What you need: A standard approach to gathering and comparing qualitative information such as process mapping. What you get: Insight into where and how performance gaps occur and best practices that the organization can apply to other areas.
3. Internal benchmarking compares metrics (performance benchmarking) and practices (practice benchmarking) from different units, product lines, departments, programs, geographies, etc., within the organization. What you need: At least two areas within the organization that have shared metrics and practices. What you get: Internal benchmarking is a good starting point to understand the current standard of business performance. Sustained internal benchmarking applies mainly to large organizations where certain areas of the business are more efficient than others.
4. External benchmarking compares the metrics and practices of an organization to many others organizations. What you need: For custom benchmarking you need one or more organizations to agree to participate. You may also need a third party to facilitate data collection. This approach can be highly valuable but often require significant time and effort. What you get: An objective understanding of your organization’s current state, which allows you to set baselines and goals for improvement.

CASE STUDY

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, a five-year-old boy, his father, and his mother. He visits his native place Madurai which is 500kms away from Bangalore once 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 options so that he will buy a good car for his family. Note: Mr Pughazhyendhii is fond of big cars….

This ‘Case Study’ needs some detailed Brainstorming or Benchmarking of cars under the price range of 8 to 10 lakhs satisfying all elemental needs. A few key points need to be kept under consideration while suggesting a vehicle to Mr Pughazhyendhii,

ü Budget (8 – 10 lakh)	ü Mileage (15-25 Kmpl)	ü Maintenance Cost
ü Transmission type	ü Boot Space	ü NCAP Rating
ü Safety Features	ü Driver Ergonomics	ü Passenger Ergonomics
ü AI Features	ü Storage capacity	ü Instrument Cluster
ü Entertainment	ü Rear row comfort	ü Ease of Driving

The sample is divided into different categories: By considering all these key points we have a few awesome vehicle outcomes. Here I have just sampled only “Petrol vehicles” because of very less margin between both (Petrol & Diesel) fuels, also the long term maintenance cost of them taking registration time (10 years for Diesel & 15 years for Petrol) under consideration too.

• MUV:- Maruti Ertiga LXI (least recommended)
• Hatchback:- Volkswagen Polo, Hyundai I20 (turbo gait feel)
• Sedan:- Honda Amaze, Maruti Ciaz (comfortable rear row)
• SUV B-Class:- Renault Kiger, Tata Nexon, Tata Punch, Kia Sonet (swanky but minimal features)

Among these, all vehicles Maruti Ciaz is an out-budget vehicle with an on-road price of about 10.8lakh, but this is a really great vehicle for rear row passengers (as Pughazhyendhii parents really find them comfortable around there).

Vehicle Name	Maruti Ertiga LXI	Renault Kiger RXT	TATA Nexon XE	Volkswagen POLO Comfortline 1.0L TSI	Honda Amaze S CVT 1.2	Hyundai I20 Sportz 1.2	Tata Punch Accomplished	Kia Sonet HTK 1.2	Maruti Ciaz Sigma 1.5
Transmission Type	Manual – 5 gears	AMT – 5 gears	Manual – 6 gears, Sports mode	Manual – 6 gears	CVT	Manual	AMT	Manual	Manual
Fuel Type	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol	Petrol
Mileage (kmpl)	15 to 19	16 to 19	14 to 19	13 to 18	18 to 21	17 to 19	17 to 20	16 to 20	16 to 21
NCAP Rating	3 Star	4 Star	5 Star	4 Star	4 Star	3 Star	5 Star	3 Star	4 Star
Engine Type	1462 cc – K15 Smart Hybrid	999 cc – 1.0L Energy	1199 cc – 1.2L Turbocharged Revotron	999 cc – 1.0L TSI	1199 cc – i-VTEC	1197 cc – 1.2 l Kappa	1199 cc – 1.2 Revotron	1197 cc – Smartstream G 1.2	1462 cc – K15 Smart Hybrid
Ground Clearance	168 mm	205mm	209mm	168mm	162mm	170 mm	187 mm	211 mm	170 mm
Boot Space	540 lt.	405 lt.	350 lt.	280 lt.	420 lt.	311 lt.	366 lt.	392 lt.	510 lt.
Braking Features	ABS, EBD, BA	ABS, EBD	ABS, EBD, BA, ESP, TCS, HHC	ABS, EBD	ABS, EBD, HHC	ABS, EBD	ABS, EBD	ABS, EBD	ABS, EBD

CONCLUSION:-

Getting to any conclusion is a tough task. But here we have compared about nine cars of different segments & brands which is a huge task to physically verify a complete set of data, so here are just a few safety & basic need of vehicle sorted. Of these 4 segments of vehicle, ‘SUV B-class’ an overall high-order placing but few other cars also overcome these in various categories so they can’t be undermined. To simplify the conclusion, we describe them with their segment as a reference.

MUV – This ‘Maruti Suzuki Ertiga’ is a spacious vehicle with 3-row seating with plenty of luggage space. But the engine is underpowered compared to its size. Also in a crowded city like Bangalore, it is a tight scenario to randomly move around with it.

Hatchback – We have two giants under this category, ‘Volkswagen Polo’ & ‘Hyundai I20’. Both of these vehicles have a hard punch feel over quick acceleration. ‘Polo’ is not moving in the market as expected due to its over-pricing (compared to its rivals) and old-school design. Whereas ‘I20’ is a great performer from a long ago, and currently its new generation is spanking all around. So, from this segment ‘I20’ gets an advantage but at this price range, it is limited in features.

Sedan – Luxurious vehicles come under this category like Amaze, Ciaz, Elantra etc... Here only ‘Amaze’ lies in price range and this is a sweet package of power, comfort and luxury, with a perfectly balanced wheelbase it can be daily used in a busy city like Bangalore. On another hand, ‘Ciaz’ – is an 80k expensive vehicle but apart from price, it’s an extremely well-balanced vehicle for daily commuting with comfort and power just over peak level in this segment creating a soothing drive experience.

SUV B-Class – All vehicle under this category is well packed with power, comfort, features, and sportiness which can be taken to any sort of road usually we avoid a 4-wheeler to move. But among such a great package, a great rivalry comes along. This is our market’s most challenging segment for both manufacturers and customers. Here we have four different brand vehicles which are packed with different features but here we will compare this segment not on basis of features but on seating comfort, engine specification, vehicle dimension and capacity. If we compare their features in this price range then this will not justify the real value of that vehicle. So this segment is categorized as Tata Nexon, Kia Sonet, Renault Kiger and Tata Punch. Here ‘Punch’ is only added to satisfy just one condition, if the owner hadn’t driven any vehicle yet then this vehicle will be a good choice for him.

At last from all these classes, ‘Tata Nexon’ makes a lead followed by ‘Honda Amaze’ and ‘Hyundai I20’ but if Mr Pughazhyendhii is able to manage more 80K rupee, then he must consider ‘Maruti Ciaz’ on top of the chart.