What is benchmarking? This short video introduces the concept of benchmarking and illustrates it with a simple example. #alevelbusiness #ibbusiness #benchmarking VIDEO CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:32 What is benchmarking? 00:54 Four key steps in benchmarking 01:38 Different types of benchmarking 02:47 Worked example of benchmarking ABOUT BENCHMARKING The objective of benchmarking is to understand and evaluate the current position of a business or organisation in relation to best practice and to identify areas and means of performance improvement. The search for best practice can exist inside a particular industry and also in other industries - are there lessons to be learned from other industries? Benchmarking involves looking outward (outside a particular business, organisation, industry, region or country) to examine how others achieve their performance levels, and to understand the processes they use. In this way, benchmarking helps explain the processes behind excellent performance. When lessons learned from a benchmarking exercise are applied appropriately, they facilitate improved performance in critical functions within an organisation or in key areas of the business. The application of benchmarking involves four key steps: Understand in detail existing business processes Analyse the business processes of others Compare own business performance with that of others analysed Implement the steps necessary to close the performance gap Benchmarking should not be considered a one-off exercise. To be effective, it must become an integral part of an ongoing improvement process, the goal being to abreast of ever-improving best practice.