Benchmark your business (2024)

What is benchmarking?

Benchmarking is a process that involves measuring the performance of your business against a competitor in the same market. This will give you a better understanding of your business performance and potential.

Benefits of benchmarking your performance

Benchmarking allows you to:

  • identify and prioritise parts of your business that could improve
  • understand your customers' needs better
  • identify your strengths and weaknesses
  • set goals and performance expectations
  • monitor your performance and manage change more effectively
  • understand your competitors to become more competitive

How to benchmark your business performance

Follow these steps to benchmark your business against your competitors:

1. Identify what you're going to benchmark

Create targeted and specific questions that:

  • you can explore using qualitative or quantitative research efforts
  • align with your business strategy

If you haven't done market research yet, our guide can help you come up with appropriate questions for your competitors.

2. Identify your competitors

Write down a list your competitors. Most businesses benchmark within the same industry.

Identify the following:

  • effective tactics that they use for their business
  • areas in which their business is performing better

3. Look at trends

Look at recent statistics to analyse any current trends in your industry, including how fast your industry is moving.

Consider these trends and how you can plan ahead to keep your business in tune with your customers' needs.

4. Outline your objectives

After you've interpreted the results of the analysis and communicated them to the appropriate people, you need to come up with some goals for your business. Your goals should be:

  • concrete
  • attainable
  • in line with your business strategy

Make sure you list all your goals in your marketing plan.

5. Develop an action plan for your objectives

Define the specific, concrete actions needed to achieve your goals.

Make sure each action includes the:

  • tasks involved
  • person responsible for each task
  • date for each task to be completed

6. Monitor your results

Continuously monitor the results of the benchmarking efforts and ensure the actions are consistently applied.

Create a one-page action plan using our template. You can include your action plan in your business plan.

Benchmark your business (2024)

FAQs

Benchmark your business? ›

Performance benchmarking is often the first step businesses take to identify gaps or areas of improvement. It's the process of measuring the performance of specific product lines, services, operations, or other business processes against top performers (other companies, competitors, or industry leaders).

What is benchmarking in business example? ›

Internal benchmarking compares performance, processes and practises against other parts of the business (e.g. Different teams, business units, groups or even individuals). For example, benchmarks could be used to compare processes in one retail store with those in another store in the same chain.

Why should you benchmark your business? ›

Performing benchmarks allows you to identify areas for improvement to get the company on par with the growth and success of other businesses in your industry or niche. By assessing what other companies are doing successfully, you can develop a plan to boost performance and take advantage of opportunities.

What is benchmarking approach in business? ›

In business, benchmarking is a process used to measure the quality and performance of your company's products, services, and processes. These measurements don't have much value on their own—that data needs to be compared against some sort of standard.

What is an example of successful benchmarking? ›

Some examples of successful benchmarking in business include Toyota's production system, which has been benchmarked by many automotive companies for its efficiency. Another example is the benchmarking of Apple's innovation strategies by tech companies.

How to do a good benchmark? ›

How to Benchmark. To benchmark effectively, make sure you compare the same issue or process across organizations. This way, your benchmarking can be as objective and precise as possible. To make a good comparison, you need a specific and accurate definition of the comparison factors.

What are the 4 types of benchmarking? ›

There are four main types of benchmarking: internal, external, performance, and practice. 1.

What are the 4 phases of benchmarking? ›

In any benchmarking practice process, it is important to follow an organized and structured approach. There are 4 phases in a general benchmarking process – Planning, Analysis, Integration, and Action.

What are 4 of benchmarking best practices? ›

Here are six benchmarking best practices that can make your efforts more impactful:
  1. Start early. If you want to be the best, it's never too early to start benchmarking. ...
  2. Have a timeline. ...
  3. Choose an appropriate peer group. ...
  4. Look outside your industry. ...
  5. Stick to meaningful metrics. ...
  6. Focus on improving operations.
Sep 21, 2021

What are the pros and cons of benchmarking? ›

PROS: Accelerates progress, promotes innovative thinking, provides hard data on performance. CONS: Requires adjustment of practices, focuses on how things are accomplished, may not provide exact targets.

What are the pros and cons of benchmarking in business? ›

Pro: Internal benchmarking allows you to repurpose something without reinventing the wheel. Con: You could miss out on a better solution. Pro: Competitive research can get the creative juices flowing. Con: It can also be a distraction and lead to a tangent in your creative process.

What is the primary purpose of benchmarking? ›

Many companies use benchmarking to improve the quality of their products. This often involves studying their competitors' products to determine how they outperform similar goods. This can result in improvements to a company's products, which will ultimately affect customer satisfaction and their bottom line.

What is another word for benchmarking? ›

Synonyms of 'benchmark' in American English

(noun) in the sense of reference point. Synonyms. reference point. criterion. gauge.

What is benchmarking in simple terms? ›

Benchmarking is defined as the process of measuring products, services, and processes against those of organizations known to be leaders in one or more aspects of their operations.

What is benchmarking and give an example? ›

Benchmarking is the practice of a business comparing key metrics of their operations to other similar companies. You can also think of a benchmark report as a dashboard on a car. It is a way you can quickly determine the health of the business.

How does McDonald's use benchmarking? ›

McDonald's started using Sprinklr's Benchmarking module to get comparative business insights. By layering Benchmarking on top of Listening, McDonald's is now able to dive much deeper into social performance metrics, and can leverage that knowledge to drive creativity, growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

What is benchmarking in simple words? ›

Benchmarking is defined as the process of measuring products, services, and processes against those of organizations known to be leaders in one or more aspects of their operations.

What is process benchmarking and an example? ›

Process benchmarking constitutes comparing and analyzing your business processes with those processes that are considered the best practices in the industry. When comparing, it is crucial that the nature of the processes be similar so that comparing makes sense.

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