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What is involved in the process of Benchmarking?

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Begin by defining the project in exact terms and develop a complete, simple project plan. This plan should include a way to measure your success. Be sure to include objectives, scope, approach, timeline, and budget in your project plan.
To make use of information about how others are doing, you need to first understand how you are doing or, at least, how you would like to be doing. This will require performance measures. Once you have this data, it can be used to help organize your project and select benchmarking partners.
Once you have your team, proceed to schedule and conduct the information exchanges with the partners you've identified. Remember benchmarking is a search for how, as well as how much. To replicate results in your organization you need to understand how they have been achieved by others and it does not require you to visit other companies. Results can be achieved in a variety of ways, depending on the time and resources available. The local library, internet research and telephone interviews are options in the search for comparative data.
Once you know how others are doing, use the data to understand how to improve. The best way is to assess where there are gaps between your performance and that of your benchmarking partners. These assessments can also be used to identify specific practices you'd like your organization to implement. Once you have learned what others are doing and how they are doing it, make sure that all related staff in your organization is informed and can make use of what you've learned. Thus, the report and presentations may be one of the most important facets of your project.

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