Since the beginning of the 90s, the increasing use of the management tool Benchmarking is leading to a growing need of supporting consulting services. The Information Center Benchmarking (IZB) has set itself the task to provide advice and assistance to only small and medium enterprises (SME) and large companies, but also institutions and organizations of the public sector by performing benchmarking activities.
With its interdisciplinary team composed of economists, engineers, computer and social scientists, the IZB not only performs entire benchmarking projects from the identification of benchmarking objects through to derivation of actions and its implementation. It also performs independent studies, seminars and trainings and promotes, through regularly hold conferences, the exchange of information and knowledge on the application oriented benchmarking research.
The IZB experience rests on more than a decade of involvement with the topic and shows that benchmarking is more than a passing fad. It has rather established itself as an effective management method. Its flexible and versatile applications, ranging from optimization of business process to the comprehensive support of companies’ strategic orientation, are the key to the success of benchmarking.
The IZB is hosted un the division for Business Management of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK. As a member of Europe’s largest applied research organization, the IZB pursues the goal of always remaining in the state-of-art of research and practice and, consequently, pushing economy’s innovation worldwide.