The term benchmark originates from the history of guns and ammunition, regarding the same aim as for the business term, comparison, and improved performance of the business. Gregory H. Watson former Vice President of quality at Xerox Corporation recommended benchmarking for checking the standard of the product. It is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to make the industry follow the best practices when compared with the other companies. It is typically measured as time, quality and cost of the business to improve the standard of the industry. The objective of benchmarking is to evaluate the enterprise performance and to ensure that the enterprise is operating efficiently.
Benchmarking process is used in business in which organization evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to the best practices of industry. This then allow the organization to develop a plan on how to make the improvements. It may be one-off event, but it is often treated as a continuous process in which organization seeks to improve their business practices. The management identifies the best firms in their industry or in another industry where similar processes exists and compares the results and process of those companies. So that they learn how they perform well and adapt those processes in their organization to make themself the most successful one.
Some of the articles related to benchmarking techniques are as follows,
In some cases, the benchmarking analysis is used for better understanding of how the company performed in the previous years. The benchmark criteria defines the organizations Area of Development.
Some of the tools used in the industry for benchmarking are,
List of association related to benchmarking techniques are as follows,
Some of the books and magazines for benchmarking techniques,