In the process benchmarking, business procedures are compared among companies. These processes can be both procedural or structural. The comparison of the own processes with the ones of the benchmarking partners can lead to revelation of innovative solutions for the process design. Though, a prerequisite is that the processes to be analysed are precisely defined, properly structured and quantified through relevant metrics. These metrics are, in turn, the basis for the comparison. Subsequently, a transfer of external knowledge in the own knowledge system takes place.
How does your company benefit from it?
Your company can reap several benefits from competitive information generated by a process benchmarking. It begins with the increased self-perception that emerges from the transparency and common understanding throughout the analysis of the business processes. In a process benchmarking, the context (viz. the processes) through which the measurable performance of an organization comes about. The primary goal is that the participating companies learn from each other, and so improve their business processes. Examples of goals and potential improvements for your company are:
- Cost reduction in specific business divisions
- Lead time reduction in crucial business processes
- Quality enhancement for sensitive products
- Significant growth f customer/client satisfaction and employee motivation rates
- Sustainable growth of general company competitiveness
How do we proceed?
Parting from the company’s goals, the goals of the benchmarking project and the project team are defined. This is followed by a detailed delimitation of the processes to be analysed, as well as the determination of the schedule and milestones of the project, allowing a better controlling of the results.
Building on this introductory phase, the next step is to perform a situation analysis. Here, the business processes to be asses later on are firstly identifies and measurand determined and defined. In many cases, considering the high complexity of these processes, a process modelling is used by means of the method of the integrated business modelling (IUM – integrierte Unternehmensmodellierung), created at IPK-Berlin, in order to ensure a consistent and equal understanding of the procedures.
Within the actual comparison, the processes of selected companies are evaluated according to specific performance parameters. Possible reasons for the identifies performance differences are analysed in order to identify best practices. These should have, subsequently, its applicability verified. Normally, a process benchmarking project is composed of 5 to 7 participating companies.
The following task of the benchmarking team is to interpret the analysis results and define measurable actions elaborated in form of an action catalogue or action plan. It is a responsibility of the company to execute those actions. The learnings from other companies should not be copied, but rather adapted transmitted to the own company with the goal of optimizing business processes, methods or products significantly.