The Six Benchmarking Steps You Need
The Six Benchmarking Steps You Need
Everyone talks about benchmarking, but few know what to do. Learn the six steps in most any benchmarking initiative, from building support, to designing and improving a plan.
Benchmarking, step-by-step:
Introduction
Step One: Select the process and build support
Step Two: Determine current performance
Step Three: Determine where performance should be
Step Four: Determine the performance gap
Step Five: Design an action plan
Step Six and Beyond: Continuously improve
The new economy represents a transformed business environment brought about by changes related to technology, people, culture and process; a marketplace created by significant shifts in business and cultural value dynamics which demand that we place a greater emphasis on non-physical assets, such as organizational structure, customer satisfaction and employee growth. The new economy values one thing above all else: knowledge - the currency of the new millennium.
Knowledge comes in many forms. One such form is the knowledge that is distilled from comparing one organization's performance against another's in order to gather critical information about business processes, risks and controls, and develop metrics by which to improve performance. In a word, benchmarking.
Benchmarking is well suited to the new economy, an economy which requires that successful companies create value in new ways, namely by recognizing that competitiveness now demands emphasis on both tangible and non-tangible assets. Benchmarking incorporates what we know is true about sustained, long-term business success in this new economy.
Consider the American Productivity and Quality Center's definition of benchmarking: "Benchmarking is the practice of being humble enough to admit that someone else is better at something and wise enough to try and learn how to...
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