Benchmarking

A Report on

BENCHMARKING

Submitted by Jithin B Nair

07/06/2022

 

Benchmarking is process of comparing a product with the similar types of products available in a market, to learn how the product compares to the products of the rivals/ competitors.

It helps an organization or the company to identify the short-comings of their product. This is a major process necessary for a continuous improvement of the product. It also helps to recognize any future prospects and ideas for new products.

There are mainly 4 levels for benchmarking a product.

1. Identify the market and product, recognize the leading competitors. Compare and collect data on all the available products.
   This requires an understanding of one’s own product and that of the competitor’s.
   Then an outline of comparison must be prepared.
   g.- while benchmarking a car at an initial level, most importantly the targeted customers are too be considered. Then they type of car, it’s exterior & interior design, it’s Engine specifications, transmission, capacity to carry perople, luggage capacity, mileage, safety requirements, etc. Should be taken into account.
2. The second step is to analyze all the collected data, study it and prepare a concept by which one can improve an already existing product or develop a new product for the intended market.
   This helps to find what to improve and where to improve it.
3. Now all the data collected and studies conducted must be applied. Use of data from older products and thus creating a skeleton for the a new and better product by eliminating existing flaws.
4. All products have many minor details hidden from major ones, like the exact measurements of size and weight. Each product might have many different number of parts. A detailed study and comparison of these minute but important factors are to be done in the similar way as we did the first three steps

All the collected data is then combined to produce a very detailed report on the product by including all the older data, comparisons from competitor’s product, ideas and plans of action on how to improve the product and the outline of the new product after removing the existing flaws. This final outline creates a base for the new product, in other words a benchmark, for the new product to overcome.

This whole process is what is called as benchmarking.

As an example, I have comapred 5 different cars to choose one as per the requirement of a customer who specified his need. And then suggested a car which best suits all his needs. (report attatched as PDF).