What Is Competitive Benchmarking

What is Competitive Benchmarking?
by
David Hutchins, Chairman, David Hutchins International Ltd
The term “benchmarking” is relatively new but the concept is as old as competition itself. Whether in industry, sport or in other aspects of our daily lives, we continually need to reference our own performance against others. Attendance at a business convention is a graphic example. In its basic form, benchmarking is nothing other than a formalised way of learning from each other; and learning from each other is one of the primary objectives of this event. Those who will be presenting their achievements know that the audience will constantly be comparing their work with that of the presenters themselves. In this case, the comparisons will be related to:
The quality and type of visual aids used, whether overhead, 35mm or even video
The techniques they used in the project
How the project was selected
How many members there were in the team
etc., etc.
Notice that these comparisons can be made irrespective of the type of work of the team presenting.
How a Quality Circle is organised and how it conducts its affairs can be just as informative to someone in a bank, whether the example is from a team in coal mining, or from a team in the same industry. In fact in many cases it may be even more informative because people in different industries often do the same things but in different ways. Of course, the technical details of the project may not be relevant, but these are usually incidental to the real interests of Quality Circles. These are more interested in how the circles operate, not the technical details. Questions relating to “how a circle works” are transferable from one industry to another and from one country to another. That is what makes the circle’s movement so vibrant. Each is engaged in the common purpose of striving for excellence. This example holds good for all other concepts or processes that are not industry specific - recruitment, marketing,...