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Measure Your Performance Against the Best-In-Class Companies!
Today companies in pursuit of world class excellence use benchmarking to measure themselves against the best-in-class in quality and performance. Benchmarking is a systematic method for comparing all aspects of your operation to the best-in-class. But the benefits go well beyond analyzing the process by which things are made or services are performed.
What can management expect to get out of benchmarking? Significant behavioral shifts occur as a company begins to recognize that “gaps” exist between their performance and the performance of other organizations.
First, benchmarking provides a better understanding of customer needs and of the dynamics of a particular industry. Competitive benchmarking can help build sensitivity to changing customer needs. Benchmarking acknowledges that another organization is able to perform the same process at a higher performance level. It also helps in establishing realistic, actionable objectives for the implementation of process improvement.
More importantly, benchmarking changes the way a company thinks about improvement. Benchmarking creates a sense of urgency and a sense of competitiveness as teams recognize the potential of breakthrough thinking to achieve their own process improvement.
Team leaders then must recognize that the competition is constantly improving, and to stay ahead it is necessary to get out in front. This means a continuing reliance on change and the search for best practices. So, the team leader must be willing to stay the course during the benchmarking process.