This is a technique with which it comes to finding out what they do well the leaders (of your business or other individual), and then tries to adapt this knowledge to our company (for its detractors, this is basically copy!) However, it is much more than that. I remember when I was young (not many years ago!) Had the idea that the Japanese copied. However, what he did or Japan after World War II was to build a country in ruins and almost medieval in some aspects, making it the second largest economic power. To this end, besides implementing benchmarking, hired two American quality specialists, Deming and Juran, who taught them about aspects of total quality, all of which adapted it to their way of doing things. And the result is that today Japan is one of the leading countries in technology. The Japanese followed other Oriental dragons, as South Korea, which begins today and is being a pointer, or Taiwan.
The next will be China, which is still in the stage of “copy”, but in some industries is beginning to emerge. Apart from this brief look at the international level (which is not too bad we could take note in Spain, we are not referenced in almost nothing), Benchmarking can be applied in our companies in several ways: – Noting the “best practices” making the competition (or, again, companies in other sectors). – Obtaining the information through our existing employees about other companies they have been or known by other means. – From customers and suppliers (although it should be careful with this information, due to interest they may have may not be entirely true or accurate). – You can make a cooperative benchmarking, exchanging information on best practices with companies that are not our responsibility.
– Collect information from various sources, including newspapers and magazines, Internet, trade fairs and exhibitions, and so on. Benchmarking can also be an interesting technique in a personal capacity, that is, as professionals we have some role models in peers, acquaintances, famous people in certain areas … observing and analyzing those aspects that make them excel in their fields of activity can also be learned much, and improvement. For example, remember the case of a partner who was very good at reporting. And not just because it was fast, but was rarely wrong, even managing a huge amount of data. The secret of his success was that before handing over the report made a number of findings and a series of ratios calculated to check the reasonableness of the information. Something as simple-or as complicated, as it allowed him to detect anomalies, and as a result, be almost infallible. It is a technique that usually prepare all reports can be applied with relative ease, and with great benefit.