Definition
Benchmarkin is a benchmark for measurement, often referencing and comparing itself to other companies.
This provides a fundamental context, as it allows reasonable thresholds to be calculated for the objectives to be defined in any strategic planning.
Knowing what other companies in the same sector are doing is a basic and fundamental strategy in any business plan, since it allows you to make estimates of sales and margins depending on how saturated the market you want to access is.
Table of Contents
Types of benchmarking
Benchmarking is classified as:
- Competitive benchmarking: it consists of comparing yourself with other companies in the sector. Analyze the services and products of the competition to make a comparison with ours. The purpose is to find and detect weak points to improve them and surpass the competition.
- Internal benchmarking: it is used to compare the performance of the different departments that make up a company. A department is identified that will be used as a paradigm for analysis. For example, compare the operation of the finance department with that of digital marketing.
- Functional benchmarking: analyzes the good practices of a company in the area that you want to improve. It does not have to be from the competition, nor from the same sector.
Benchmarking phases
- Planning: define what the object of the analysis will be. What you want to measure, who is going to be the reference and how it is going to be analyzed.
- Data collection: data mining is done. Data can come from internal sources, research…
- Analysis: with the data collected, we proceed to the analysis of the elements that cause the differences.
- Action: implementation of the proposed improvements in the analysis.
Related Terms
