Benchmarking best practices
Benchmarking involves comparing your own performance, or that of your organisation, against best practice for your industry, function, sector or activity.
Clients ask us to carry out benchmarking assignments for a variety of reasons:
- Sometimes clients are facing a burning issue, for example, retaining key staff following an acquisition. What are the experiences of other organisations?
- At other times, clients simply wish to compare themselves, on various performance measures, against other organisations operating in similar fields
- As part of a restructuring or other assignment, clients want information about industry norms, for instance, for headcount or outsourcing.
Poor benchmarking can degenerate into “voyeurism”. As a consequence we push our clients to: (1) identify the implications; (2) develop a workable action plan; and (3) follow it through.
Illustrative assignments we have carried out include:
- Pinpointing best practices prior to, and immediately following, an overseas acquisition
- Best practices in Large Customer Account Management
- Examining the optimum size for a Corporate Centre
- Best practice in international business development
- Comparing headcount for similar sized overseas projects across a range of utilities.
When we benchmark, we typically collect both quantitative and qualitative information. Most projects have five separate phases:
Planning
Data collection
Analysing Results
Implementing Changes
Reviewing Progress
For a fuller discussion of benchmarking and our standard five-phased approach, see the following article under “Resources & Publications”: benchmarking-article
If you wish to see a short edited extract from one of our benchmarking reports, consult: sample-benchmarking-report-extract
To discuss your requirements further, by all means contact: info@mcnultymanagementconsultants.com
For more information contact info@mcnultymanagementconsultants.com
or call
(44) 01923 835007
