Process benchmarking is a planned activity whereby you pick a particular business process and seek to learn how the best in the industry manage that particular process. It involves these key steps.
-
Identifying a key process that you wish to improve.
-
Determining what aspect of the process you wish to focus upon (i.e which sub-processes).
-
Identifying a similar type or size of business or organisation that excels in the process.
-
Contacting the organisation that you wish to benchmark against, arranging to visit them and studying the process or activity.
-
Analysing the results and learning the lessons.
-
Improving the critical process in your business.
-
Measuring and monitoring the impact.
Process benchmarking means building relationships with the best in class companies, on-site visits to learn how they do it so well and adapting (not adopting) what they do to fit your business.
It requires planning, organisation, financial resources and significant effort to conduct meaningful process benchmarking, but it delivers huge returns in terms of finding better ways of doing things.