What Is Benchmarking?Essay Preview: What Is Benchmarking?Report this essayWhat is Benchmarking?Benchmarking has become a widely accepted practice in different industries. But knowing that you should benchmark does not mean you know exactly what it is and how it should be done. This section of the eGuide seeks to provide answers to the following questions:
2.1 What is the history of benchmarking?Benchmarking is a management approach to identify Who is best? and What makes them so successful? It has experienced increased popularity, both by manufacturing and service companies. In management science, benchmarking is usually positioned as being an extension of an existing total quality program, and as being a way in which to establish new, more relevant and efficient standards of performance. The increased interest in benchmarking has certainly been stimulated with the publication of Xeroxs manager Robert Camps book on benchmarking (Camp, 1989). Since then, the phenomenon of benchmarking has been discussed by many authors primarily in the form of management guidebooks (e.g. Spendolini, 1992; Watson, 1992, 1993; Zairi, 1992; 1996; Harrington and Harrington, 1996; Cross, 1998; Codling, 1998; Czarnecki, 1999).
The benchmarking community now provides many options for users, for their own needs and to understand the value and value of any specific workload. In doing so, benchmarking enables a more integrated and informed view into what the tool may or may not do. This also increases the level of respect for the user’s decisions, based on personal feedback. For example, as many users have pointed out, benchmarking should encourage the integration of the new software with existing existing system performance data to help develop a new process or strategy.
We have developed a powerful and reliable tool for comparing software performance at the same time.
In its first generation, the benchmarking community had a much wider range of tools and a longer development cycle, especially on system performance. With this new tool we can make it more convenient to work with more than one software version of that software, which allows us to build and manage a more complex mix of tools. Our new tool will help the future of benchmarking to grow, and enable better toolability, faster and more efficient use of tooling space, for both the developer as part of the solution (i.e. software developers) and for the community (i.e. the community).
This new tool also integrates a more complete approach like Microsoft Excel in which various tools are combined with their data for a greater amount of total system performance, resulting in significantly more efficient performance improvement. The goal now is to enhance and simplify this model as well, allowing the average developer the choice of the tool they desire the most. We believe this tool will ensure more interoperability and improve reliability of software, and allows more people in the industry to use the tool.
The new tool will come into its own with many other tools, including the use of different types and specializations. The user may choose the tool to use for the particular workload and its own value, or choose to combine the existing tool to better understand the user’s needs while at the same time providing the ability to implement a different kind of tool.
In addition, we believe it has many other benefits for the process and for the system, including improved system performance. However, the process of building, managing & managing the tool needs to be a long-standing process and not just put in one time. Building and managing a tool is a lot more straightforward than it is for an IT admin or an IT specialist or for a general practitioner in a small business like Microsoft IT. We therefore offer a tool for the task.
In summary, the latest version of the tool will provide a way of sharing the tools that you use to make your business smarter and grow, while at the same time offering new, more useful and integrated features that encourage other developers and the community to invest in it.
In this blog post, we have compared the software used by an average Microsoft admin to the tool used by a large company with a significant share of their revenue (in contrast to just a handful of people who use Microsoft’s tool to manage large user groups or customer groups). The comparison shows that at a large level all tools, particularly the tools that work best together on the platform, are available for developers just as well (and often in different ways) as those that are not (for more information about all tools
The benchmarking community now provides many options for users, for their own needs and to understand the value and value of any specific workload. In doing so, benchmarking enables a more integrated and informed view into what the tool may or may not do. This also increases the level of respect for the user’s decisions, based on personal feedback. For example, as many users have pointed out, benchmarking should encourage the integration of the new software with existing existing system performance data to help develop a new process or strategy.
We have developed a powerful and reliable tool for comparing software performance at the same time.
In its first generation, the benchmarking community had a much wider range of tools and a longer development cycle, especially on system performance. With this new tool we can make it more convenient to work with more than one software version of that software, which allows us to build and manage a more complex mix of tools. Our new tool will help the future of benchmarking to grow, and enable better toolability, faster and more efficient use of tooling space, for both the developer as part of the solution (i.e. software developers) and for the community (i.e. the community).
This new tool also integrates a more complete approach like Microsoft Excel in which various tools are combined with their data for a greater amount of total system performance, resulting in significantly more efficient performance improvement. The goal now is to enhance and simplify this model as well, allowing the average developer the choice of the tool they desire the most. We believe this tool will ensure more interoperability and improve reliability of software, and allows more people in the industry to use the tool.
The new tool will come into its own with many other tools, including the use of different types and specializations. The user may choose the tool to use for the particular workload and its own value, or choose to combine the existing tool to better understand the user’s needs while at the same time providing the ability to implement a different kind of tool.
In addition, we believe it has many other benefits for the process and for the system, including improved system performance. However, the process of building, managing & managing the tool needs to be a long-standing process and not just put in one time. Building and managing a tool is a lot more straightforward than it is for an IT admin or an IT specialist or for a general practitioner in a small business like Microsoft IT. We therefore offer a tool for the task.
In summary, the latest version of the tool will provide a way of sharing the tools that you use to make your business smarter and grow, while at the same time offering new, more useful and integrated features that encourage other developers and the community to invest in it.
In this blog post, we have compared the software used by an average Microsoft admin to the tool used by a large company with a significant share of their revenue (in contrast to just a handful of people who use Microsoft’s tool to manage large user groups or customer groups). The comparison shows that at a large level all tools, particularly the tools that work best together on the platform, are available for developers just as well (and often in different ways) as those that are not (for more information about all tools
2.2 How can benchmarking be defined?Ahmed and Rafiq (1998:228) point to the wide variation of commonly used definitions for benchmarking:“Benchmarking is a continuous systematic process for evaluating the products, services and work of organizations that are recognized as representing best practices for the purpose of organizational improvement.” (Spendolini, 1992)
National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce“Benchmarking is a continuous search for, and application of, significantly better practices that lead to superior competitive performance.” (Watson, 1993)
“Benchmarking is a disciplined process that begins with a thorough search to identify best-practice-organizations, continues with the careful study of ones own practices and performance, progresses through systematic site visits and interviews, and concludes with an analysis of results, development of recommendations and implementation.” (Garvin, 1993).
“Benchmarking is an external focus on internal activities, functions, or operations in order to achieve continuous improvement.” (McNair and Leibfried, 1992).
In summary, benchmarking can be defined as a systematic procedure of comparative measurement with the objective to achieve continuous improvement. The great success of benchmarking in recent years is probably related to its inherent characteristic of being a knowledge-sharing and motivational process. It encourages managers and their staff to think in terms of performance measures and practices to increase profitability.
2.3 In which areas can benchmarking be used?Benchmarking is currently used in several business areas and particularly in quality management. The objective of benchmarking is the promotion of process or product improvement by the identification of a recognized standard and of the related actions required.
The insights gained from benchmarking provide an organization with a foundation for building operational plans to meet and surpass the standard and promote an overall awareness of business improvement opportunities. It is argued from practitioners as well as from scientific communities that benchmarking can promote thinking that generates improvement breakthroughs and leads to greater awareness of the need for long term planning.
Despite the wide use of benchmarking techniques in quality, marketing, finance, technology innovation in the manufacturing industry, benchmarking is still a vague concept in the service industry, particularly in the tourism field.
2.4 What is the difference between internal and external benchmarking?A distinction made in the literature is the difference between external and internal benchmarking (Spendolini, 1992; Camp, 1995). However, it is possible to further distinguish four different types of benchmarking (see Table 1) according to their focus and methodology applied in the benchmarking endeavor.
National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerceTable 1: Different Types of Benchmarking.ApproachScopeObjectivesAdvantagesDisadvantagesInternalbenchmarkingFunctions, departments, projects, businesses in the same company or group at the same or another location* Improve competitiveness* Stimulate continuous improvement* Improve economic efficiency* Find effective employee rewarding