In simple words benchmarking(Eng. Benchmarking) is a comparison with the best. When collective farmers in Soviet films demonstrated their achievements at agricultural exhibitions and paid each other visits to exchange best practices, this was not called benchmarking, but in fact it was exactly that. When Nikita Khrushchev visited American farms and marveled at corn and milk yields, he also did some benchmarking.

Benchmarking helps to improve business processes relatively quickly and cost-effectively. It allows you to understand how leading companies operate and achieve the same or better results. The value of benchmarking is not only that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. By carefully studying the achievements and mistakes of other companies, you can develop your own most effective business model.

Benchmarking is not just copying the systems used by successful companies. This approach may not give the desired results due to differences in business structures. The main thing is the adaptation of these principles for internal application. It is thanks to this that the benchmarking system can be effective not only with direct competitors in the market, but also with firms whose target audience is completely different. You can even analyze the work of enterprises from a completely different field of activity.

Competent benchmarking of the company can radically improve its functioning, but only if there is an understanding of their own processes. When comparing two business models, you need to be well versed in both, otherwise you won't get a clear picture of the big picture. Therefore, you first need to analyze the production processes in your company, and only then proceed to benchmarking.

Goals and objectives of benchmarking

The exchange of experience, as well as the study of other people's developments, has always been beneficial. But we can not say that this happens in 100% of cases. Some organizations are so far apart in various ways that benchmarking may not be useful. In this regard, the need for this step must first be justified, that is, the strategic goals of the company must coincide with the need for such a study. Benchmarking is a full-fledged business management tool, since its goal is to improve the system and increase the competitiveness of the company in the long term. This goal is achieved through the solution of specific issues.

In the process of comparing business schemes of different companies, two main tasks are solved:

1. Calculation of indicators of your own enterprise and comparing them with the selected standard.
2. Analysis of someone else's experience and its implementation in your company.

How to make a company a market leader: the experience of X-fit

Irina Tumanova, Executive Director company X-Fit, told the magazine " CEO”, how from a small company X-fit managed to become a market leader.

Benchmarking features are as follows

1. To give an idea to the management about the current state of affairs in the company, to overcome stagnation in the management sector.
2. Strive for improvement.
3. Find out in time that the organization is lagging behind in a certain area.
4. Identify company resources and identify weaknesses to overcome.
5. Set challenging but realistic goals for the firm.
6. Determine priorities for optimizing work.
7. Determine the level of the company in comparison with the best in the world.
8. Calculate the degree of backlog of the company.
9. Identify the best management systems and put them into operation.
10. Prepare an action plan for corrective action.
11. Link a long-term development plan with the company's self-improvement efforts.
12. Find previously unused technologies or management methods.
13. Focus on those factors that bring undoubted benefits to the enterprise.
14. To achieve large-scale improvements in the work of the organization, a “breakthrough”.
15. With the help of someone else's experience, rid the company of the "need" to learn from their own mistakes.
16. Establish the principle of continuous improvement in the organization.
17. Reduce financial costs for improving the work of the company.
18. Reduce risks when introducing new methods.
19. Raise the main financial indicators.

Benchmarking objects

Products and services. This position is the first one that benchmarking is focused on. The activities of a competing company are analyzed, points are highlighted due to which its business is more successful than yours. After that, it becomes clear what needs to be done to increase the productivity of the native company. There is one moment. It is somewhat easier to use benchmarking in the case of manufactured tangible products than in the case of services. The fact is that it is much more difficult to obtain the information necessary for research on the latter parameter. It is necessary at least to analyze the production field and take several interviews with competing firms.

Financial indicators. Benchmarking financial indicators is not so difficult, of course, if you know where and what to look for. Typically, this information is publicly available. By organizing a study on financial performance, you can determine the possible achievements and tasks that should be set for yourself. Material investments for carrying out such an analysis require very little, and you can meet it in a short time.

Business processes. Business process research is the most effective part of benchmarking. To remain competitive in the market, a company must be engaged in the development of the business as a whole, constantly invest various kinds of resources in it and control all operations. The capabilities of a particular organization can be "calculated" from its business processes. This type of analysis is especially important in a situation where two enterprises directly compete with each other, offering the same product to the consumer. An organization that has managed to increase competitiveness as efficiently as possible with lowest cost, will win.

This study on the benchmarking system is primary. It is with the help of such an analysis that specialists subsequently paint all the further steps that need to be taken to increase the profitability of the company. But for this it is necessary to carefully study the entire chain of work of a competing company, from its suppliers to the labor organization system. By the way, it is not at all necessary to be limited to the study of the activities of only one organization. It is useful to take note of related businesses that work with the same product and benchmark their business processes.

Strategies. No business can function properly without a strategy. You can improve the performance of your own company by carefully analyzing the strategy and organization of the competitor's work. True, it is not so easy to obtain comprehensive information in this case. Often such data is a closely guarded secret of the company. When benchmarking a strategy, it is necessary, first of all, to use logic, and only then the study will bear fruit.

Staff. Thanks to personnel benchmarking, you can compare the performance of your own HR departments in several indicators with those of the world's leading companies. After receiving the results of the analysis, the company's management will be able to manage personnel more efficiently. Before starting the comparison, you should determine the main performance indicators of the HR service. Some managers consider this department almost a burden for the company, steadily and unjustifiably absorbing financial resources. Only this is far from true. The fact is that the work of the HR service in one way or another affects the quality of the activities of many departments. Sometimes this happens in such an indirect way that the benefit of this department is difficult not only to evaluate, but even to notice. Therefore, carefully conducted benchmarking is needed, with the help of which you can get specific indicators of the activities of the HR service, as well as identify problems that require immediate attention.

Functions, groups and organizations. Using benchmarking, specialists collect information not only about the competitive company products, but also how it is done. Each enterprise has a certain internal structure and organization of labor. It is precisely the clarification of all such details that is included in the task of benchmarking on this topic. Moreover, attention is often paid to the most insignificant, at first glance, nuances. For example, professional qualities competitors' employees. The analysis carefully examines the total number of personnel in the company under study, the groups created, their functions, etc.

To facilitate the process of benchmarking, in this case, various kinds of websites are often drawn up, with the help of which contacts are established between specialists. Thanks to this, research costs are significantly reduced, because to obtain information you do not need to pay the road for employees of the analytical department, and the quality of incoming data does not suffer.

Types of benchmarking

Internal benchmarking. Based on the name, it is clear that this type of research is carried out exclusively within the company. For comparison, processes, goods or services that are closest in parameters are taken. The advantage of the method is that the analysis can be carried out without much difficulty, since there are no difficulties in collecting data. The downside is the very limited opportunities for research, as a result of which biased results are possible.

Competitive benchmarking. The analysis is carried out on the basis of comparing the products and services of your company with the products and services of a direct competitor company, and the latter can work both in the local, regional or international market. This type of benchmarking will be more useful if you choose an international organization for comparison.

Functional benchmarking. In such a study, the processes of one's own company are compared with similar processes of another. The difference from other types of benchmarking is that the firm chosen as a benchmark operates in a completely different area. The advantages of this method are in less effort to obtain objective data, and by absolutely ethical and legal methods.

Generalized benchmarking. For analysis, companies are selected that have the best indicators of processes and approaches in a certain area of ​​activity. Moreover, information about the work of these organizations is in the public domain. For example, there are many publications about the production system at Toyota or Motorola. An analysis is made of the most suitable processes and approaches for the company's own, which, after appropriate adaptation, are introduced into the work.

• Lean: small steps for big goals

Benchmarking examples

Internal benchmarking at Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Corporation was ahead of its direct competitors from Japan in many ways. In particular, products were produced no less high quality, but at a faster pace. The question arose about maintaining the competitiveness of the company. Hewlett-Packard decided to conduct an analysis of research and development activities to find effective methods to speed up production.

The company compared the activities of its divisions, using the payback period of the project as a criterion. In order for the products to meet the real requirements of consumers, the technology of deploying quality functions was applied.

The result of the benchmarking was the decision of the company to implement a methodology called Six Sigma. The optimization of production consisted in the complete documentation of the process, the measurement of characteristics with a decrease in the variability of their values. The search for ways to improve the algorithms was also constantly conducted. If you look closely, Hewlett-Packard Corporation acted almost on the principle of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analize, Improve, Control - definition, measurement, analysis, improvement, control).

Competitive benchmarking at Ford

Ford Corporation in many design parameters could not compete with its rivals. In addition, according to consumers, its products were not functional. It got to the point that the company's profits fell catastrophically. She was able to return the market only after a completely new family of Taurus passenger cars was created. This machine was obliged to at least not yield to competitors' models. To achieve this effect, a benchmarking analysis was carried out. The company's specialists organized a survey among the population in order to find out which particular properties of cars are the most popular. After that, they chose the cars on the world market that best corresponded to certain requirements of potential customers. The task of Taurus was not only to reach their level in various characteristics, but also to surpass it.

Benchmarking studies were carried out taking into account a huge number of car brands, and it did not matter whether they were direct competitors of the company or not. For example, cars like the BMW and Opel Senator have never competed with the Ford Taurus, but have some features that appeal to buyers. About 400 parameters of more than 50 car models were analyzed. new products Ford developed and implemented based on the principles of DMADV (Define, Match, Analyze, Design, Verify - definition, measurement, analysis, development, verification). The result was not long in coming. Soon Ford Taurus became the car of the year and came out on top in sales.

Unfortunately, the success didn't last too long. The transmission of the Taurus revealed certain flaws that undermined the reputation of the car. Due to the constant improvements that followed, the company began to deviate more and more from the original concept. As a result, by the end of the 90s of the last century, Taurus sales decreased by almost seven times. They tried to correct the situation, but in 2006 the production of this family of cars ceased. However, they learn from mistakes, and Ford is no exception. The main lesson this time was the understanding that benchmarking of competing enterprises is not a one-time event. Such studies should be carried out regularly in order to update the results and adjust activities. In general, the Six Sigma methodology says almost the same thing: the search for sources of variation not only provides certain knowledge about the level of competitiveness of the company, but also shows a graph of its change. As a result, company management has the opportunity to take into account not only the short-term effects of the implementation of certain improvement programs, but also the future consequences of decisions made.

Functional benchmarking at General Motors

General Motors in 1982-1984. carried out benchmarking analysis, with the help of which she tried to find a way to improve the quality and reliability of products through alternative management options. At that time, as part of the "competition" with Japan, most firms began to pay increased attention to the quality of the goods, believing that this parameter is the main one in the struggle for competitiveness. General Motors did data-driven research famous companies: Hewlett-Packard, 3M, John Deer. Before proceeding with the analysis, experts from General Motors outlined 10 hypotheses about the factors that most affect product quality. These hypotheses had to be confirmed with the help of information from partner companies that also carry out benchmarking work.

An objective comprehensive assessment of the quality management systems adopted in the firms participating in the research was formed. As a result, a relationship was found between the quality of goods and the efficiency of enterprises. Moreover, largely due to this research, a little later, the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award appeared, and then the ISO 9000 series of standards, which established General requirements to quality management systems. General Motors was 14 years ahead of research on the criteria of the Baldridge model, however, as well as the requirements of ISO 9000 standards. This gave the company and its partners undeniable advantages over competitors. The fact is that customers considered their products to be of much higher quality than the products of other firms working in the same field.

But, as is typical of many benchmarking analyses, this study also suffered from the lack of regular study of working conditions and production processes in the company. Instead of constantly improving itself, General Motors was satisfied with the advantage achieved. And then she completely switched to following the requirements of the industry standard QS 9000 (the latter is a modified version of ISO 9000, taking into account the characteristics of the automotive industry). General Motors also regularly competes for the Malcolm Baldrige Award and masters the Six Sigma methodology. But now all automobile enterprises are engaged in this, and the quality management system must be constantly developed.

General Benchmarking at Xerox

There are enough examples when benchmarking helped a company in a difficult situation. However, one of the most famous is Xerox's comparison of its logistics system with those of more successful enterprises. Involuntarily, Xerox confirmed the correctness of the American scientist William Deming, who argued that the crisis experienced by the organization often provokes an increase in quality. He forces executives to take certain actions to get the company out of trouble. In the late 1970s, Xerox began to succumb to pressure from Japanese competitors. For 10 years, from 1974 to 1984, the return on the firm's assets dropped from 22% to 4%. Xerox decided to try to get out of the crisis and find more suitable management methods with the help of benchmarking.

Fuji Xerox, the Japanese branch of Xerox, played an important role in conducting the study. The company analyzed three main parameters: its own processes and costs, the costs and processes of its branch, as well as similar components from competitors. Thanks to this study and open information At market prices for copiers, Xerox was able to figure out the value of competitors' operations, and then calculate the areas in which they showed the best financial performance. As a result, the company was able to assess the size of the gap between itself and its rivals, but it was not immediately possible to eliminate it. Only after turning to the experience of the world's leading companies, Xerox was able to catch up with competing firms in areas where it had previously lagged far behind. But benchmarking in that situation did not play the role of a genie from a lamp that could get rid of all the troubles.

The 90s came, and digital technologies came to replace analog technologies. At the same time, Xerox switched from a cumbersome functional structure to a simplified scheme. Improvement of production processes began to pay much less attention than before. Winning leadership in the copier market by improving the quality of goods and conducting research is not only forgotten, but temporarily excluded from priority tasks. It follows from Xerox's experience that benchmarking is a tool that can help a company improve, but nothing more. This is not a panacea, much less a magic wand, waving which, you can solve all problems. In some situations, the usual copying of the experience of more advanced enterprises may not help.

Are benchmarking tools suitable for small companies?

If a medium-sized firm decided to do such an analysis, then it may have questions:

Don't give up on benchmarking just because there's a lot of work ahead. If you properly use all the opportunities provided by benchmarking, you can take your company to a completely different level.

Benchmarking stages: from object selection to implementation of changes

Benchmarking is not an equation that is solved in a strictly defined way. There is no single system here, each company uses its own developments. But all activities can be divided into several stages:

1. At the first stage, you need to select the benchmarking object, analyze and refine it. It can be some process, service or product produced by the enterprise. Here it is important to decide on the following points: what resources the company can afford to allocate for this study; a one-time action is planned or such a practice will become regular.

2. At the second stage, the characteristics that need to be analyzed are determined. The object of analysis can be certain process parameters, consumer properties of a product or service.

3. The third stage is the appointment of specialists who will conduct benchmarking. It is desirable to take people from different departments. This will give you the opportunity to take a broader look at the object of research both in your own company and in a benchmarking partner firm.

4. The fourth stage is the actual choice of partners. These can be serious enterprises whose success in implementing the characteristics you are interested in is undeniable (you identified the characteristics themselves at the second stage). As partners, you can take both one company and several. With internal benchmarking of an organization, related divisions of the company will act as partners, processes within the enterprise or manufactured products will be analyzed.

5. At the fifth stage, the collection and analysis of data necessary for further comparison begins. Often the received information needs to be processed. The fact is that in different companies the same specifications product may be described in different ways. Everything will need to be brought to a common denominator.

6. The sixth stage of benchmarking is to assess the company's ability to catch up with the leading organization in terms of the required characteristics. Valuation methods can be different, for example, using a GAP analysis.

7. At the seventh stage, specialists determine what changes are needed in the work of the enterprise to achieve a specific result. The overall picture should be based on the results of adapting the acquired knowledge to the conditions of your own company.

8. The eighth stage is devoted to the development of strategic goals and drawing up plans to achieve them. Much depends on the scale of the proposed changes. Plans may relate to the organization of production, management systems and other aspects of the company.

9. At the ninth stage, the previously approved plans are being implemented. Moreover, this process requires constant monitoring. If necessary, plans are adjusted in the course of implementation.

10. The last step is to decide on re-benchmarking to solve new problems, if, of course, the past ones were successfully implemented.

2 approaches to benchmarking

Benchmarking wheel

Stage 1. Planning.

1. Creation of a team of professionals.
2. The choice of parameters for the study.
3. Definition of the process (product, service) that needs to be compared.

Stage 2. Search. Selection of benchmarking partners or other data sources.

Stage 3. Data collection. Selecting the method of obtaining information according to certain parameters.

Stage 4. Analysis. Comparison of indicators and finding out the extent to which your company lags behind the one chosen for benchmarking. Development and transmission of recommendations for improving performance.

Stage 5. Adaptation of the result. Making necessary changes to an organization's product, service, process or strategy.

The Xerox Approach

Xerox has come up with its own approach to benchmarking, which consists of five phases and 12 steps.

Phase 1. Planning.

1. Find out exactly what to compare.
2. Find a benchmarking partner.
3. Map out a way to get data and start collecting it.

Phase 2. Analysis

1. Determine how big the performance gap is between companies.
2. Develop and provide future levels of these indicators.

Phase 3. Approval

1. Associate the results obtained and the allowable gap in indicators.
2. Define functional goals.

Phase 4. Action

1. Development of a further action plan.
2. Implementation of individual events in the company with tracking the progress of the company.
3. Adjustment of comparison of indicators.

Phase 5. Completion

1. Leading out.
2. Bringing the experience gained into the company's activities.

Common Mistakes in Benchmarking

1. Some perceive benchmarking as a kind of audit of the organization. But this is far from true.

With the help of benchmarking research, you can get certain useful numbers, but the system itself is aimed at finding out what these numbers mean, that is, you can find out where the enterprise is in one position or another.

2. Many are sure that some basic parameters have been developed long ago and do not need any improvements.

It is not possible to apply such a system in a company simply because any market is not monolithic. There is a difference in customer preferences, availability of resources, production conditions, and so on. You need to find partners who will share their experience in achieving goals, as well as tell you whether your company is capable of reaching such heights.

3. Another common mistake is the lack of attention to the needs of the client.

Some firms after benchmarking are so carried away by the need to reduce costs while increasing the quality of goods that they completely stop paying attention to what the direct consumer needs from the product. In order to avoid such a mistake, it would be nice to use a specially developed integrated system of business indicators - a "balanced scorecard".

4. The desire to do everything and immediately positive results, most likely, will not give.

Managers who decide to benchmark absolutely all systems of the company at the same time make a big mistake. First, it's expensive. Second, it takes too long. Everything must be done gradually, analyzing one system after another.

5. Inconsistency also leads to failure.

Several points can be noted here. The use of benchmarking should be consistent with the company's strategy and not conflict with other initiatives. The process of implementing benchmarking must be directed and controlled by management.

6. It would be a mistake to set unspecific, too “vague” tasks.

Sometimes benchmarking is tasked with analyzing communications between company employees. But the question is, how can this be measured and in what units? Therefore, it is better to choose more specific goals for research, for example, to evaluate the system of distribution of powers in the company.

7. Benchmarking without a pre-prepared platform does not make sense.

A similar situation may arise when the study of some processes in competing firms or the search for benchmarking partners begins before data on the same processes in their own organization is obtained.

8. An insufficiently complete analysis of the research partner can be a fatal mistake.

If both your time and your partner's time is wasted, then it will not lead to anything good. The existing code of such research states that if you are able to obtain the necessary data or solve the problem yourself, then you do not need to worry your partner about this.

Iwao Kobayashi "20 keys - a technique for creating a quality work environment."

This paper describes a system of 20 keys with which organizations can improve the efficiency of their activities. This technique is convenient to use for benchmarking. The sequence of actions deduced by the author is extremely simple, transparent and useful. With its help, the fundamental problems of the production of goods and the provision of services are solved. Admittedly, the method proposed by Kobayashi, unlike many others, guarantees the achievement of the desired results with less time and effort. The book not only combines world achievements in productivity improvement, but also implements the interconnection of individual systems with each other.

Rob Rader Benchmarking strategy as a means to improve profitability.

After reading this book, you can easily understand the basic principles, methods and rules of internal and external benchmarking. It is easy to learn how to choose samples and benchmarks for planned studies, based on a study of the company's activities and an analysis of the needs of all interested parties. The book discusses the methods by which you need to collect benchmarking data and implement the experience of other firms in your own organization. The author talks about the code of conduct for participants in the process and the rules for reporting on the results of the analysis.

Rob Rader advises how to use benchmarking as a tool for organizational development, as well as for strategizing how to use the benefits gained. By following the recommendations of the book, an ordinary well-performing company can be transformed into a world-class company.

Harrington H.J., Harrington J.S. “Benchmarking at its best! 20 steps to success.

This publication is practically a benchmarking of benchmarking itself. Having studied all the recommendations proposed in the book, you can improve both the work of any department of the company, and all its activities as a whole.

The authors review successful research methods, from the purchase of products from a competing firm to the analysis of the production process. With this guide you can choose the best way benchmarking.

The work used huge amounts of data from Ernst & Young. The language of the book is completely uncomplicated and free from professional jargon, which in many cases is very important. After reading this book on benchmarking, you can learn how some companies have achieved 2000% growth in production using this methodology in just eight months. Maybe you can do something similar?

Business in Russia continues to develop and master new management tools that make it possible to improve the quality of business processes and increase the competitiveness of organizations in the market. Benchmarking is one such tool.

Dear reader! Our articles talk about typical ways to resolve legal issues, but each case is unique.

If you want to know how to solve exactly your problem - contact the online consultant form on the right or call by phone.

It's fast and free!

Modern large enterprises already consider this analysis as an important tool for the strategy of their actions aimed at development, and small and medium-sized businesses are often not even familiar with the concept of benchmarking and the meaning of this term. But such ignorance does not yet speak of this tool as useless, but quite the opposite, benchmarking can be used to increase the competitiveness of some small businesses.

There are many different definitions of this concept, and in order to fully understand what it contains, you should familiarize yourself with several of them.

The name benchmarking comes from two English words branch (height) and mark (mark).

There are the following definitions of this concept:

1. Benchmarking- the process of comparing the company's performance with the world's best organizations existing in the same market segment in order to make appropriate changes and maintain their success.
2. Benchmarking- a method of comparative analysis in order to apply the data obtained in practice to improve the efficiency and quality of the company's activities.
3. Benchmarking- the process of carefully reviewing the business processes of organizations and their performance, with the aim of comparing their activities with those of industry-leading companies and corporations, in order to use the obtained data to approximate and even overtake enterprises of the best in a single class.
4. Benchmarking– search for the best practices for the enterprise, leading to increased productivity and development.
5. Benchmarking- a development standard in which similar business processes should be analyzed and measured.

The phrase "Benchmarking" can mean:

1. Be smart and wise enough to recognize that there is always a competitor who is superior in some way.
2. To have sufficient wisdom not only to recognize, but also to adopt knowledge and skills from a direct competitor in order to catch up with him, and then get around him.

It is benchmarking today that allows you to quickly improve the activities of organizations at minimal cost. By understanding how industry-leading enterprises operate, one can reach the same heights, and possibly even surpass direct competitors. By carefully studying the achievements and mistakes of others, an entrepreneur can form his own strategy of action, which will be most effective for his enterprise.

There is an unspoken rule in benchmarking: “If one entrepreneur came up with and succeeded, then the probability of success is high for another businessman who applied the same strategy in the same industry.”

Historical edit

The use of this business tool began in the 80s of the 19th century. Many recognize Xerox as the pioneer or discoverer of this technique, because it, faced with more successful foreign competitors, copied their strategy and managed to outperform them in the market.

To implement their plans, the representatives of the company were faced with the task of answering sequentially two questions:

1. Which firm is the leader?
2. How did this company operate to be successful?

These questions are the basis of benchmarking today and still remain relevant.

Following Xerox, there were many others who chose to use this method or similar ones, thereby expanding the scope of benchmarking and refining the power of this tool.

The expansion of this business tool has led to the fact that the search for companies for analysis is no longer limited to considering direct competitors, but also affects other companies in the same field of activity or even in another. AT recent times analysis became more and more reduced to the search for answers only to the second question.

Analysis, search and identification of successful strategies of competitors is not all. It is quite a difficult job of a different kind to implement such a course of action in a particular organization.

Main types

There are the following types of benchmarking:

1. Interior. An analysis of a particular process within the organization itself that allows the compilation of indicators of processes that are similar or analogous.
2. Competitive. It is a process of comparing the main characteristics of an organization and comparing these parameters with the parameters of competitive organizations, in order to study specific products, intended capabilities and methods of administering work.
3. Functional. Analysis and comparison of certain indicators of companies (two or more) with the same business data of an enterprise that is the best and operates in identical conditions.
4. General. It is a comparison of the main indicators of production and sales of the company with the main indicators common to a large number of competitors engaged in similar business activities. This type of benchmarking allows you to identify the main investment areas.

Phases

The competitive analysis process itself can consist of 4 main phases, each of which includes some steps.

Phase #1 - Preparation

1. The first step is to determine the object of the competitive analysis process. The value and level of relevance of an object intended to perform the tasks and main functions of the organization is measured and studied. In this process, areas of significant difficulty are identified, bottlenecks are probed, and areas of particular interest are identified.
2. Thresholds are set in order to derive a score of success. The selected objects will be further considered depending on some of the most important aspects of the activity with the help of financial units. These aspects may include: costs, time, quality level, etc.
3. To conduct the most accurate and capacious analysis, additional information resources are involved such as: fairs, seminars, reports, business plans, target audience surveys, supplier surveys, exchange processes, inspection production capacity, reference data, chambers of commerce, information in the media, literature, etc.
4. Search for the main enterprises for comparative analysis. The selection of such organizations should be carried out not only within their market area. Other branches of activity may offer the most decisive and innovative methods, suitable for enterprises engaged in completely different activities. An enterprise that is not a direct competitor is much more willing to provide more complete information for a more detailed comparison and analysis.

Phase #2 - Analysis

1. Based on the values ​​and factors of the organization's work selected at the first stage, the most inefficient processes, services, products and technologies, the performance of their own enterprise and the reasons for such inefficiency are determined.
2. Directions are chosen that allow more effective organization of these processes and technologies. We will have to look for an answer to the question of why competing enterprises are better in this area.

Phase #3 - Implementation

1. On the this stage it is necessary to determine the goals of the proposed changes and strategies for their implementation. There is a detailed discussion of the expected results, a full awareness of the need for change, and precise targets the work of the organization, taking into account the introduction of new standards and forms of activity.
2. A detailed action plan is being drawn up, calculation of the resources spent on such a reorganization, the persons responsible for changes at each level are announced, a reorganization calendar is developed and the results of such activities are forecasted.
3. Implementation of all proposed changes according to the plan and calendar.
4. Changes are monitored at every stage of change, which is designed to compare the effectiveness of similar innovations. It also checks compliance with the planned restructuring plan and compliance with the target dates.

Phase #4 Repetition

Effective market methods and processes are constantly evolving and subject to major changes, what was yesterday the most innovative methodology is quickly becoming the standard. That is why the fourth stage should include a continuous process of improving the work of the organization. Well, in order to make work in this direction as simple as possible, you should use the documentation of benchmarking experience in as much detail as possible.

Examples of successful benchmarking

Ford

A good example of the use of such analysis can be found in the history of Ford. Benchmarking was carried out by its specialists in the 90s, when the company's position on the market was seriously shaken. In the course of this analysis, studies of car models were carried out, the number of which exceeded 50.

These studies were conducted in order to clarify the advantages and, accordingly, the disadvantages of each. According to such an analysis, the parameters of the best car were identified, which would allow to achieve the performance of competitors' companies and even surpass them.

The result of this company was the car model Taurus, which became the car of the year. Subsequently, the model lost its position due to the fact that improvements began to be made, deviating it from the original concept of development, based on the analysis of competitive models.

Nokia

This company has long been recognized as an international organization engaged in the creation of mobile devices and services. Nokia uses benchmarking to maintain its position in the market and develop by keeping track of time and progress in all areas of its activities (logistics, research, development, partner relations, people).

GIA

This company is consulting firm, which is engaged in market research, identifying profitable strategies and providing various types of services that allow companies to establish business processes. GIA constantly produces various benchmarking seminars. A typical project of this company includes 2 thematic seminars, where various business and analysis issues can be discussed.

Each seminar can be devoted to the following topics:

1. Economic improvements based on examples.
2. Learning how to run a profitable business based on the experience of competitors.
3. Exchange of main strategies and ideas between competent specialists from various areas entrepreneurial activity.
4. Training based on the mistakes made by other companies, as an opportunity to avoid wrong and unnecessary financial expenses in your own work.

What is compared in the benchmarking process?

Competitive analysis is not a highly specialized analysis that is limited to products or core business processes. Based on the past experience of similar studies, it can be said that the campaigns showed incredible originality and ingenuity in the selection of the main factors considered in the benchmarking process.

But with all this, one should not get carried away and forget that the essence of the analysis is to identify the reasons for the effectiveness of competitors. If the analysis begins with a general collection of information, then it should end with a clarification of the methodology of work. The result of the work should be the so-called implementation tool, which is a factor leading the company to high efficiency in the required area.

Benchmarking- a reliable method that allows you to improve business activities by studying the experience of other companies existing in the global market and in a particular area. This analysis becomes the strongest tool that improves the efficiency of companies and allows you to implement best practices that lead to development and profit.

The transition of Russia to a new economic system, of course, affected all aspects of the social, socio-economic and cultural life population, especially in business. The bulk of the leaders of Soviet enterprises knew about competition only in in general terms From textbooks, the questions of increasing the efficiency of production were never raised at all (except for raising labor productivity to fulfill plans), they could think about increasing profits, as it was supposed, only in bourgeois countries. The low interest in the case was also due to the fact that the enterprises were not the property of the head.

Today, the principles of management, goals and ways to achieve goals for private enterprises have changed dramatically, therefore, in market conditions, management is increasingly forced to form a marketing service in order to make competent and timely management decisions to improve business efficiency. Marketing services are often engaged in quite a variety of activities, which is determined by the goals and nature of the work. As a rule, this is the development of organizational tactics, the search for and formation of an optimal, but mobile, product, price, and marketing policy, as well as strategic planning for the movement of goods on the market. Marketing activity is one of the most important functions in the field of entrepreneurship. With its help, stable, competitive work and development of a subject are ensured. marketing system in market conditions, taking into account the state of the internal and external environments. Marketing activities are based on the conducted marketing research, as on their basis the development of a strategy and a program of marketing activities is carried out, the use of which will help increase the productivity of the company, maximize the satisfaction of the needs of the consumer or client. The results of market research are most important for the leadership as well as the adoption of entrepreneurial and marketing solutions, to eliminate or reduce the uncertainty of external and internal conditions of behavior of the subjects of the marketing system. It is almost impossible to avoid risk, but adverse consequences can be predicted, prevented or mitigated in advance. A minimum of uncertainty is what you need to strive for, because it’s not in vain that they say: “Forewarned is forearmed.” To reduce risks and uncertainty, it is necessary to find a range of negative possible phenomena, dangers and problem situations that an organization may encounter in the process marketing activities. Thus, in order to effectively build the work of an organization, it is not enough for a management or a firm to have information only about internal features state of the company and production and economic activities, this approach is irrelevant and will not stand the test of time. Modern successful businessmen give preference to continuous strategic planning of all production, marketing and commercial activities of the organization, while operational planning does not lose its significance. The effectiveness of planning at each stage largely depends on reliable, representative marketing information. In practice, it turned out that in general it is quite difficult to analyze and draw conclusions, it became necessary to separate the functions of various departments and services and form a specialized service for organizing marketing activities, whose competence primarily includes conducting marketing research and developing marketing programs.

The development of entrepreneurship in Russia went in parallel with significant economic transformations, which created fertile ground for the development of new types of business and production, the use of the latest theories, technologies and directions for the development of marketing and management. Practice has proven that the classical definition of marketing, which implies well-known components: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, is far from exhaustive and not at all sufficient, since it does not reflect the interconnection of the interaction processes of all subjects of the market system. Recently, other areas of modern marketing have appeared and began to be put into practice (interaction marketing, strategic orientation of marketing, etc.), benchmarking has been and remains one of the most effective and popular.

Term "benchmarking"- English, like many modern words related to business and economics, is unusual for the "Russian ear" and relatively recently began to be used in Russia, it does not have a literal translation into Russian. The term "benchmarking" comes from the word "benchmark", meaning a mark according to some established criterion (for example, a mark on a sign that prohibits children shorter than it from entering the attraction). We can say that a benchmark is something that has a certain quantity and quality, which can be used as a standard or benchmark when compared with other objects. Benchmarking is most often a systematic activity aimed at finding, evaluating ways to solve problems, learning from the most suitable examples, and this is never tied to size, business area or geographical location. Benchmarking is the art of finding or identifying what others do best, and then learning, improving and applying other people's methods of work. It may seem to the layman that there is nothing unusual or new here, that we are talking about the good old, but condemned methods (such as espionage, copying, imitating business or technology). Indeed, like it or not, but you will think about it, because entrepreneurs and organizations have always been subjected to espionage, their “recipes for success” have been carefully analyzed and studied, and then used by others. In the West in the late 1960s - early 1970s. some enterprises began to put forward similar theories, which were based on a comparison of the work and productivity not so much of competing enterprises (of course, theirs too), but of advanced organizations (the best, most successful, most productive) from their own and other industries. Entrepreneurs began to learn to find, identify and neutralize differences in the management of enterprises that reduced their own efficiency. The developed concepts and methods made it possible to reduce costs, increase profits and optimize the dynamics of the structure and determine the strategy of the organization.

Benchmarking in developed countries, it has long won a “place in the sun” among entrepreneurs and managers, enjoys their sympathy and is successfully used in the practice of Japanese, American, Western European and Scandinavian businessmen. For a long time it was believed that the birthplace of this term is the United States. Of course not in modern form, but benchmarking has been used before. In Japan, benchmarking is close in meaning to the Japanese word dantotsu, meaning "the effort, concern, concern of the best (leader) to become even better (leader)". In China, when talking about benchmarking, they often recall the rule of the Chinese general Sun Tzu: "When you know your enemy and know yourself, you are not afraid of the result of a hundred wars." At the present stage, the use of benchmarking, thanks to the main principle “from best to best”, leads to life and success for many companies in the USA, Japan, and Western Europe. Benchmarking was first used in 1972 at the initiative of the Cambridge Institute for Strategic Planning (USA). PIMS, a research and consulting organization that has studied the impact of marketing strategies on profits, has found that in order to develop effective behavior in a competitive environment, it is necessary to know the experience of the best enterprises that have succeeded in similar conditions.

In 1979, a well-known large American company began the "Competitiveness Benchmarking" project to conduct a complete cost and quality analysis of its own products in comparison with a similar Japanese company. The project was very successful and attracted a lot of attention. Benchmarking after that began to be intensively distributed among specialists in the USA and applied in other organizations: HP, Dupont, Motorola, Chase. It should be noted that benchmarking does not stand still, but is developing dynamically. The body of his knowledge is constantly expanding and growing rapidly, so it is difficult to find an exact description of him.

The Center for Productivity and Quality (Bestinghouse) sees benchmarking as an ongoing process of detailed exploration of best practices that can rapidly improve competitive performance.

For most organizations, benchmarking as such is not new, since it is most often carried out as part of a competitive analysis, however, the use of benchmarking is more effective because it is a more detailed, formalized and streamlined methodology compared to a competitive analysis method or approach. Benchmarking for today is an essential ingredient for the success of any organization.

Benchmarking can be used in a variety of ways. In logistics, for example, benchmarking facilitates fast, low-cost identification and prevention of problem situations in logistics systems related to areas close to the buyer, order fulfillment and transportation.

Benchmarking visually reflects where a firm or market can face cost or quality problems, and also shows the organization's place among competitors. He finds and identifies problems in the course of work, concretizing them.

Many experts in economics and marketing are convinced that benchmarking should become a permanent process in the company. As part of benchmarking entrepreneurial functions are considered from the standpoint of improving processes aimed at creating a product or service, promoting them to the market. The use of benchmarking as a component implies the development of a strategy, boundaries and frameworks of management functions, however, the consumer remains the main source of information about products, the market and competitors.

Many firms that use benchmarking are convinced that it contributes to a reliable competitiveness, as well as creating the prerequisites for constantly monitoring the level of company performance in the context of the internationalization of the processes of procurement of raw materials and materials.

Benchmarking experience is also used to define the company's success strategy. Close attention is directed to the following questions: who? as? why? (Which firm has climbed to the top of the competition? Why hasn't their own organization become the best in their field? What can be changed and what needs to be changed in the enterprise to become the best? How to implement the appropriate strategy to get ahead?).

When benchmarking is used in a company, employees are divided into teams consisting of representatives of different services and departments. Value-oriented planning, as well as literacy, communication skills, customer service competence, technology and entrepreneurial culture are the most important areas of activity for employees and the company as a whole. Some believe that benchmarking is an activity that is directly related to customers, technology and business culture, as well as being interconnected with planning. In general, benchmarking can be attributed to a set of management tools (from global quality management to assessing customer satisfaction with goods or services produced by a given organization).

However, the vast majority of experts agree that benchmarking is the adoption of management methods from other, successfully existing companies and entrepreneurs in order to determine, by comparison with other areas of business or competitors, to identify the weaknesses of their organization.

The application of benchmarking consists in a simplified version of four consecutive steps:

1) awareness and analysis of the details of their own business processes.

Ideally, they should be known thoroughly at every stage of production, but it is better to regularly check the “health” of your organization in order to know the weaknesses and try to smooth out all negative internal and external influences;

2) analysis of business processes of other companies. Here, as they say, all means are good, since the secret of their success, always achieved hard work, both physical and intellectual, no one will agree to bring you “on a silver platter”. Most often, if you do not take into account proprietary technologies, this is a big trade secret that is diligently protected from competitors. But to analyze the dynamics of specific economic indicators, track the sales scheme, formal organization and otherwise is always possible;

3) comparison of the results of their processes with the results of the analyzed firms. Here it is necessary to involve specialists, most often organizations cope on their own;

4) the introduction of qualitative and (or) quantitative changes to overcome the gap. This action is the most difficult, since it almost always requires financial injections, the involvement of specialists or retraining of its employees, the development of new technologies, the introduction of modern management and decision-making methods. Thus, it is possible to distinguish types of benchmarking. Here are just a few:

1) internal - the activities of divisions within the company are subject to comparison;

2) competitive - comparing your organization with competitors in the maximum number of parameters;

3) general - comparison of the company with indirect competitors according to certain indicators of interest;

4) functional - comparison by functions (sales, purchases, etc.).

Benchmarking is never a one-time analysis. In order for there to be a return, an increase in the efficiency of the enterprise, it is necessary to make benchmarking an integral part of the work, a regular process of innovation and improvement in your business.

In Japan, benchmarking is popular and has been used there for a long time. Japanese firms have chosen the most suitable form for themselves - product benchmarking, which is now widespread. Product benchmarking is based on a psychology called "me too", which in some way can be considered an evolution of the Sun Tzu rule. Less popular is benchmarking of functions and processes.

If we consider benchmarking as learning based on comparison, then it is based on two levels: the strategic and the level of individual processes.

The essence of benchmarking proves that it can be treated as a direction of marketing research. Predicting the effect that the use of benchmarking can give, it should be remembered that the fact that the exchange of experience and its analysis has never been disputed by anyone has been disputed. However, “one should not scratch everyone with the same brush”, because, although many enterprises and types of activity or production are similar, each of them has its own specifics, internal reserves and potential, which can vary significantly.

Therefore, the need for benchmarking must first be justified and proven.

Summing up, we can say that the benefit of benchmarking is that production processes, sales operations and marketing functions become more manageable if the best practices, methods and technologies of the most successful enterprises or industries are analyzed and implemented in their organization. This can be the beginning, a new stage in the development of a profitable business with high resource savings, the creation of healthy competition and the greatest satisfaction of customer needs.

To date, a huge number of interpretations of the concept of benchmarking have accumulated. Some believe that it is the product of a consistent development of the concept of competitiveness, others say that benchmarking is a mobile quality improvement algorithm, while still others consider it to be an exotic novelty as a result of Japanese business practice. However, everyone agrees, or more or less agrees, on the definition that benchmarking is the process of finding, identifying, and studying the very best known management and business practices.

Benchmarking- this is a new word in the highest business circles in Russia. In our country, many entrepreneurs are still wary of this concept, and conservative-minded representatives of the older generation of upbringing of the last century and the corresponding hardening confuse it with industrial intelligence or espionage hidden under newfangled buzzwords. However, as already noted, benchmarking was not invented yesterday or even today.

Benchmarking has been going hand in hand with us ever since "that man over there in the hut across the street has done much better than the rest of us." The term has been given new interest and interest by business consultants, who are brought in by many firms of all shapes and sizes to teach them how to keep an organization's revenues up to par with those of their peers. Benchmarking in the way it is now has not always been, the modern version was developed in the USA in the 1970s, but its basic concepts were in demand much earlier. At the end of the 19th century, the American engineer Frederick Taylor explored the scientific methods of labor organization, which formed the basis of the concept of benchmarking.

There is also a theory by Bernardo de Sousa, a specialist in quality control, in which he reveals the periodization of the stages of management. Yes, he considers four stages of management change, through which the world has passed in the last half of the 20th century:

1) 1950-1970s - are characterized by strict control by the management of "Management by Objectives" (Management by Objectives);

2) 1970-1980s - the period of evaluation and comparison of values, the compilation of “value charts” is typical - (“dogs”, “money cows”, “niches” and “rising stars”) (The Value Chart);

3) 1980-1990s - the influence of competitors is increasing, it is competition that serves as a catalyst for the desire for improvements, transformations, innovations, Beat The Competition;

4) 1990s - the beginning of the XXI century. – “Focus on Processes”.

The most recent developments in management philosophy reflect a growing interest in competition and its analysis. This is due to objective reasons, primarily the variation of the competitive environment, as well as changes in the needs and interests of consumers, the emergence of new technologies, materials, etc. In the 1950s. demand was more offer Therefore, the main tasks of management were only the definition and establishment of parameters, final criteria and control over the processes of their achievement. However, later many countries faced crises of overproduction, and in the 1990s. supply significantly exceeded demand, so management, meeting the requirements of modernity and the prevailing conditions, switched to how to correctly and quickly get ahead of the competitor's performance in the production and marketing processes.

As follows from the definition of benchmarking, its goal is to find the most effective business activity. After determining the best way to manage and conduct business, the question must be answered: “How to do it better?” At this stage, you can use all available means, experience, imagination, use the services of specialists, as well as mobilize the work of your own departments and services (planning, marketing, etc.).

The pioneer in the targeted use of benchmarking was Rank Xerox, which at that time was in a severe crisis. This company has done a cost and quality study own products in comparison with competitors. A detailed study of the experience of other companies, its adaptation and use led Xerox to success and prosperity.

Benchmarking is currently considered one of the most effective areas of consulting. It is becoming more and more popular and earning more and more popularity. Even government agencies, hospitals and universities are beginning to understand and adopt the benefits of benchmarking in order to apply its fundamentals to improve their processes and systems, although in Russia this is more common for private organizations.

In Europe, this process is slow, but stable, the popularity of benchmarking remains very moderate. Significant differences in understanding of business processes in different countries hinder its implementation in business processes in various sectors of the economy.

Based on benchmarking the idea of ​​comparative activity is put forward not only in relation to competing enterprises, but also to advanced companies in other industries. In fact, benchmarking is an alternative method of strategic planning, where tasks are determined not from what has been achieved, but from the analyzed indicators of competitors. Benchmarking technology allows you to combine all the components of the strategy development system, industry analysis processes and competitor experience analysis. To better understand the methods of benchmarking, you need to determine its relationship with strategic planning.

In order to rationally choose the areas of activity, the size of the required resource base, to create relationships between the areas of its activity, the organization must clearly understand the strategic features of its industry. Therefore, industry analysis is the initial step in developing a strategy. It involves a study of the degree and characteristics of competition, customer behavior patterns, the nature of the behavior of suppliers of certain resources, barriers to entry into a market or sector of the economy, mobility and adaptability of production, as well as other specifics. Industry analysis prepares the material for fairly accurate forecasting of potential profits on average for the industry, and also reveals the reasons for the difference of some firms in comparison with others.

You need to start an industry analysis with answers to questions such as: how profitable is this industry now, are there any prospects and what are they for the near future, what determines success in this area? The market is divided into areas (niches) according to the most profitable sectors, then success factors are determined (sales system, exclusive packaging, new technical characteristics, low price, etc.). Further, their impact on profitability as a whole and separately is determined.

The next stage is a detailed study of competition. First of all, it is analyzed how important your line of business is for a competitor, that is, how much resources and financial injections it will need to develop these areas. Here it is necessary to assess the financial strength of a competitor, at least approximately, this is necessary to determine the balance of priorities in the sector of your competition with him.

It is important to find out how the competitor allocates available resources, in other words, what he has at the time of entering the market (product, price, distribution and delivery system, marketing, service and customer service system), as well as the costs of his activities. Do not forget about another important factor - this is a similar work of a competitor in the direction of research and development, which positively affects the cost of its products, as well as the necessary marketing costs for a certain period of time.

After identifying the most profitable market segments and evaluating your own competitive advantages, you need to choose a "imitation model". To achieve the most effective results in a short time, benchmarking experts advise not only to find such organizations and accumulate data on their activities, “advanced” management decisions, but also to establish contacts with them. After the data is collected, analyzed and classified, the possibility of achieving the goal and the factors influencing the result are assessed. The next step is to develop a plan, the purpose of which is to achieve the highest efficiency of the changed processes.

After conducting industry and competitor analysis, it is recommended to start developing a strategy that should contain thoughtful real ways to bypass competitors based on key success factors in various functional areas, such as expanding production, introducing new technologies, updating the product range, reviewing the pricing system, marketing and delivery, marketing, personnel, technology, etc.

According to the published data of the well-known consulting company Bain & Co, it was over the past two years that benchmarking has become one of the three most common business management methods, but this is typical for large international corporations. Its popularity is based on the fact that it helps to quickly and cost-effectively modernize business processes. It reflects and details the work of leading companies and contributes to the achievement of the same, and perhaps even better results.

Reasons for the growing popularity of benchmarking in modern world are:

1) global competition. In the context of growing international integration and globalization of business, firms are faced with the need for a comprehensive and detailed study and subsequent application of the best achievements of competitors for their own well-being and development;

2) remuneration for quality. Recently, actions, competitions, reviews and tenders held at the national and international levels to identify and reward quality leading organizations have become more widespread and public response. The conditions for participation in such events oblige, in addition to the demonstration by participating firms of the competitive advantages of their products, the mandatory use of the concept of benchmarking in the course of the usual, systematic management of the company;

3) the need to meet modern rapidly changing conditions, adapt to them, as well as the introduction of world achievements in the field of production and business technologies. In order not to be outsmarted by their competitors, all companies (regardless of size and scope) should regularly study the situation in other companies in order to apply best practices in the field of production and business technologies.

In Russia, there are enterprises and organizations that use benchmarking, but so far there are very few of them. But management is always encouraged when middle and top managers enter into informal relationships with colleagues or competitors in everyday life outside of work hours, and then take note and embody each other's best achievements in their companies. The experience of many organizations, as well as studies, prove that direct communication with colleagues leads to the most valuable innovations for a particular business: ideas and knowledge, which very often leads to successful, quick and easy implementation of new methods and forms of management, more efficient distribution and use resources, etc. But such a model "passes" only in those organizations where the leadership is ready for it. Engaged managers are a huge potential for the development of the company, but the ability to correctly create motivation is the prerogative of management, this also needs to be learned and learned from colleagues.

By level of openness business can be divided into two categories:

1) organizations that profess the principle of secrecy of their activities, carefully concealing absolutely all information about their company;

2) maximum open companies, confident that while all competitors are far behind and by the time they catch up, they will be able to come up with something new. The world-famous company General Motors has created and made available to everyone access to its database. This is mainly done for suppliers to better plan their production.

The exchange of experience is a thing known to Russian enterprises since the times of the USSR, it is not new, only now it is customary to call it benchmarking in the Western manner. The implementation of benchmarking for any Russian enterprise is usually difficult, which is due to objective reasons (such as old technologies and equipment, a lack of young specialists, low economic indicators) - you have to re-train people, sometimes just explain in detail and in an accessible way why all this is needed. However, the process, if desired, is established quite quickly and clearly. Collection, processing and implementation of new experience are occupied in some way by all departments of the organization.

At the initial stage in the organization concerned, each unit collects information of its profile. Very often sources are open reports of Western and Russian companies, special industry press, an integral part of modernity is the Internet. Information is accumulated (collected) during trips and business trips to Russian and Western companies. Entrepreneurs quite actively attend specialized exhibitions: almost every month, trained employees of the enterprise travel to collect information. All collected information is accumulated and analyzed in a single report, which is intended for the board of directors. Further, the organization's indicators are considered in relation to the industry average, after which it becomes clear which of them the organization is ahead of or behind its competitors. After that, tactics for improving performance are developed. Now, for example, many large Russian factories are engaged in increasing labor productivity, the impetus for this was the experience of Volvo, where a specialist from one domestic plant studied management, but later competitors also took advantage of his experience, so it can be useful to “look around”.

In the West, where benchmarking has long been popular, the following practice has been established: a company, actively adopting someone else's experience, certainly shares its own. Most successful businesses publish detailed performance reports and host competitors. The Western principle of successful work “if you are open, then you are developing” in Russia simply does not work and will not work for a number of objective reasons (for example: an increase in the number of inspections by competent authorities, attracting the attention of tax and other services, and many others).

Naturally, everything related to a trade secret or strategy, as well as important know-how, firms do not disclose, but actively advertise, showing the consumer that they are different from competitors. But in every organization there is a large layer of information that can and should be revealed to a competitor in order to get something useful for themselves in the form of valuable information in return. On this occasion, many experts agree that it is better for both firms to move forward than both to remain in place.

Today, Russian pharmaceutical companies have come to the conclusion that, having united to effectively fight Western competitors, they have created an unofficial data bank, constantly replenished by each other for free exchange of information among themselves, but carefully protected from foreigners.

However, the majority of leaders remain "on their own", believing that openness is unjustified. This is where the problem mentioned above makes itself felt: most Russian companies are not ready for competition, still work on old technologies and do not trust modern “tricks”, just in case, they close all the information. Most often, such managers do not know or do not believe that benchmarking involves the use of only open information, and industrial espionage has nothing to do with the case.

Speaking of Western enterprises, one cannot fail to note the experience of the Czech auto giant Skoda, which, before anyone else, solved such important problems as staff reduction, concentration of resources on core products, optimization of the personnel management system, and revealed its secrets to others. All these solutions can be found independently, but it is definitely faster and more profitable to see how other enterprises coped with similar problems.

In Russia, international companies also use methods, management and production strategies tested in other countries. But it also happens vice versa - technologies developed at a Russian enterprise or for it are distributed in other foreign firms faster than in domestic ones. However, in adopting experience, anyone has their own "pitfalls". For example, the world-famous Xerox company has always applied the principle of direct sales, and in Europe it worked perfectly, the system never failed and justified itself in all conditions, but in countries with a large territory it is almost impossible to cover the entire market in this way. The Russian office of Xerox in 1999 became a pioneer - a branch of the company that launched a two-level distribution system. After that, Xerox's marketing director claimed that the office's turnover had doubled. Xerox continued to develop successfully, develop markets, and already employees of Xerox branches from India, Latin America, Egypt and other countries with a large territory or a specific state of transport, natural and climatic conditions came to Moscow to adopt new experience in sales management.

Ideal for benchmarking- obtaining first-hand information, since the possibility of its poor quality, falsification, etc. is practically excluded. Russia, however, is experiencing problems in this area. Companies refuse to share experience, information and technology, even with businesses operating in another industry. In fact, in Russia, although this is not very noticeable against the general background, there is a significant number of firms, organizations that are successfully operating, making a profit and constantly developing, from which there is much to learn. The experience of well-known companies Yukos and Wimm-Bill-Dann in the field of decision-making, personnel management, conquering sales markets and many other areas is great, but the likelihood that they will agree to share it is negligible.

The course of development of the evolution of benchmarking is similar to the classical model of "transition from art to science". There are a lot of types of benchmarking, one of the classifications is by generations.

The so-called first generation benchmarking refers to reengineering, or retrospective analysis of the product.

Second generation- competitiveness benchmarking - rose to the level of a kind of science of organizations in 1976-1986. thanks to the active development and activities of Xerox.

heyday third generation benchmarking occurs in the period 1982-1986, when firms that are leaders in product quality recognize and begin to use the opportunity to learn (easier, faster and cheaper) from enterprises belonging to other sectors or industries, against the background of the fact that competitor research is less effective .

Fourth generation of benchmarking- strategic benchmarking, which has taken shape in a separate systematic process, designed to evaluate alternatives, adjust and implement strategies, as well as improve performance characteristics and labor quality, reduce losses and costs. Such processes are based on the study of successful strategies of other enterprises or partners.

Fifth generation- global benchmarking. It started developing relatively recently. It has gained many allies against the backdrop of the integration of developing countries into world economy, the aspirations of most states for an open economy, joint struggle against crises and problems that threaten all of humanity (such as global warming, food shortages, poor ecology, overpopulation of the Earth, etc.). Global benchmarking may become in the future a tool for organizing international exchanges, taking into account the peculiarities of cultural and national processes of organizing production.

To the most common Benchmarking types include the following:

1) internal benchmarking - benchmarking carried out within the organization, which is based on a comparison of the characteristics of production units similar to similar processes;

2) benchmarking of competitiveness - the study of the characteristics of the competitiveness of the company and its comparison with the current situation with competitors; also includes the study of specific products, possibilities and alternatives for adjusting or changing the production process or administrative methods of management of competing enterprises;

3) functional benchmarking - benchmarking that compares certain functions of two or more companies in the same sector;

4) process benchmarking - involves work on changing certain indicators to be able to compare them with firms whose characteristics are ahead of this enterprise in similar processes;

5) global benchmarking - increasing the share of strategic benchmarking along with the use of associative benchmarking as well;

6) general benchmarking - process benchmarking that compares a specific function of two or more organizations, regardless of the sector; There is less talk about the allocation of such narrower types as cost benchmarking, performance benchmarking, customer benchmarking, strategic benchmarking, operational benchmarking;

7) associative benchmarking - benchmarking carried out by organizations that have formed a narrow benchmarking alliance. The protocol of this cooperation is in the Benchmarking Code of Conduct and, as a rule, is not advertised.

The development of benchmarking directly depends on how enterprises understand quality. Usually isolated several stages in changing the understanding and attitude of enterprises towards quality.

The first stage is inspection. It has only quality control finished products. To establish quality control, the organization invests in technology improvement, its debugging and the formation of quality systems, rather than benchmarking. This practice was widespread in the USSR, it was at that time that integrated quality management systems were most widely used.

In such a situation, without fundamental changes, it is possible to partially apply product benchmarking, while comparing your own products with competitors' products. However, a significant problem that an organization will face will be a lack of information that prevents it from taking full advantage of the experience and knowledge of competitors.

The second stage is based on strengthening control. The organization is implementing the ISO 9000 quality standard. Benchmarking is used in all key business issues. Consultants are actively involved and involved in the development and implementation of benchmarking practices.

The attitude to the quality of products at all stages is changing dramatically. Quality control of the process itself comes to the fore, in which product quality is only one of the constituent elements of overall quality. Firms base their activities on customer satisfaction as a guarantee of their success in business. Gradually, the understanding of consumer satisfaction itself and the solution of related problems is changing.

A characteristic feature of the next stage is the emergence between organizations and within them partnerships, alliances and cooperations. This is due to the mobility of the concept of competition, fashion and new developments - both between firms and within the organization. As you know, there are also peculiar competitive relations between different departments in a large company. Each department has its own goals, tasks, functions, problems. Often there are contradictions and difficulties in intercompany relationships. All this leads to a number of negative consequences: a decrease in controllability and, as a result, overall efficiency. Cooperation and partnerships within an organization give impetus to a more effective exchange of information between its constituent parts.

Similar processes take place at the intercompany level. At the same time, the concept of "competition" will be replenished with another component - interaction. It is the interaction and rivalry of organizations in the conditions of modern business that become the basis for meeting the needs of customers and achieving competitive advantages.

At this stage, competitiveness benchmarking and strategic benchmarking are used.

The fourth stage is based on the fact that all companies are a single mechanism. The decision-making process is carried out only in the presence of comprehensive and accurate information to ensure the overall efficiency of the enterprise. Within the organization there is a synergistic effect.

Only after that strategic benchmarking becomes global.

It is impossible not to pay attention to such components of benchmarking as its principles, objects of study, basic rules of analysis and stages of the benchmarking process, do not forget about the main sources of information, the control system in benchmarking.

The success factors influencing the benchmarking processes are classified as follows.

"Hard" (objective) factors– suggest finding a clear framework for the project; detailed and detailed time planning; monitoring compliance with the requirements of the quality system; taking into account existing and potential budgetary constraints.

"Soft" (subjective) factors– a climate conducive to cooperation; cheerful, optimistic mood of the team, orientation of employees to achieve results; awareness of the importance of quality at all levels of production organization; interest; creative approach to ways of managing and solving problems; adherence to business ethics (superiority analysis should not turn into industrial espionage).

This concept is a kind of template, a little "cheat sheet", in some way even an algorithm for collecting the information that an enterprise needs in order to constantly change productivity and quality upwards and stay ahead of competitors. The analysis of superiority clearly shows the problem areas, shortcomings of the old business structure and determines the direction, orients where to grow, develop further and what peaks can be reached (the best results of other enterprises).

Excellence analysis looks at the internal functions, operating principles and experiences of enterprises to:

1) determining the best results;

2) analysis of the work of their organization;

3) identifying deficiencies in functioning;

4) elimination of weaknesses;

5) creating motivation among employees for continuous improvement (quality and productivity, level of education, qualifications, etc.).

In order for any enterprise to become successful and retain its place for a long time surrounded by many worthy opponents and with increased competition, the divisions of the company must themselves constantly be in a competitive environment so that there is an incentive to increase labor productivity. This will ensure the continued survival of the organization against the background of the creation of consumer utility, which will be higher than the cost of its production.

Thus, it becomes possible to identify, analyze and strengthen weaknesses in your company. This method of determining the level of one's enterprise in comparison with competitors is quite simple and mobile, since it can be applied to almost everything: from basic customers (such as turnover per employee) to customer satisfaction.

Excellence analysis, widely used in benchmarking, is primarily aimed at improving the operational and strategic performance of the organization as a whole, and ultimately leads to an orientation of the entrepreneurial culture towards such useful attitudes as the ability and desire to learn from staff, continuous improvement of potential and achievements. bosses and leading cadres, which, in principle, serves as an impetus for the development process.

Analysis is always focused on customer satisfaction. In addition, it helps to find the line between stability and updating, since "too good is also bad." When using the analysis of superiority, many enterprises improve their position in relation to competitors, reduce costs to some extent, increase the degree of customer satisfaction with their products, and in general there is an increase in efficiency, identification and subsequent elimination of weaknesses in the organization of activities, development of new plans, directions, ideas, improving the organizational structure.

The enterprise and its employees independently select the objects of research. Production analysis is most often applied to goods, services, functions, strategies, processes, etc.

If we talk about strategic issues, then it is first of all necessary to pay attention to factors that have a particularly strong influence on the realization of competitive advantages. In practice, it is common to define measurement criteria that most fully describe these factors, then identify companies that have the best results in this area. After that, those methods are found that lead to the best results.

From an analytical point of view There are three main types of analysis:

1) internal analysis of superiority involves comparing indicators within the organization itself (between departments, branches or product groups);

2) external analysis superiority draws attention to similar activities in different areas (activities of competitors in different markets);

3) functional superiority analysis compares similar functions or processes in various industries. The bottom line is to look for the best results wherever they can be. The decision of a particular organization to choose one of these three types depends ultimately on the actual situation.

Having delved a little into the essence of benchmarking, you need to pay attention to basic principles of benchmarking:

1) reciprocity. Benchmarking is an activity that is impossible without relying on mutual relations, agreement and data exchange, which provides a “winning” base for the parties involved. It should be borne in mind that reciprocity by no means obliges to complete, blind trust (after all, competitors). At the very beginning, they always agree on the limits of the range of information, the form of data exchange, the nature of the study. In benchmarking cooperation, each partner must be confident in the behavior of others, only then can a good result be achieved by everyone. Everything must be predetermined and agreed upon, not to give rise to other interpretations;

2) analogy. The operational processes of partners should be similar. Any process can be researched for the benefit of the business, and the results can be easily translated or interpreted in relation to your company. The similarity of processes and a clear definition of the parameters for the selection of benchmarking partners significantly affect the success of the activity;

3) measurement. Benchmarking is in some way a comparison of characteristics researched, measured, analyzed in several other organizations; the purpose of such processes is to identify the causes of existing differences in performance indicators, as well as ways to improve them. Here it is important to identify the key characteristics of the process, which will help to improve them based on the study of the process;

4) reliability. Benchmarking must be conducted on the basis of actual data, accurate analysis and study of the process. Intuition is also a good feeling, but validity is more important.

Benchmarking process accepted divided into six phases.

1. Identification of the object of superiority analysis. In this phase, those moments of the work of the organization are established, which can and should be investigated using the analysis of production. This gives you the opportunity to take a critical look at your enterprise (both as a whole and to its individual constituent parts) and soberly assess the situation that has developed. Moreover, one must decide whether to conduct the analysis of superiority from an internal or external perspective (for example, from the buyer's perspective).

As a rule, this tool is most often used in the analysis of goods, control of sales figures, customer orientation factors, etc. There are practically no restrictions on the use, except for those objectively derived from the needs of the buyer and the requirements of the organization itself.

2. Identify partners for excellence analysis. Once you've established your goals, you should actively seek out the very best businesses. Potential partners should not only be first-class in their own right, but also be suitable for the simplest possible comparability with their own firm. This process includes the following steps:

1) a cursory review (from the English to skim - “read quickly, run through the eyes”). A superficial review of available sources of information is assumed, as well as the compilation and structure of already received data;

2) putting in order (from the English to trim - “finish, polish, put in order”). It is supposed to search and take into account further information, describe in detail and analyze the information available up to this point;

3) selection of the best (from English to cream - “skim cream”). At this stage of the process, suitable partners are identified.

As The most commonly used sources of information are:

1) reports on the activities and financial performance of organizations;

2) specialized magazines, books, databases;

3) state list enterprises;

4) personal business connections and contacts (official and unofficial);

5) specialized consulting companies;

6) conferences, seminars, fairs directly related to the work and activities of the company;

7) joining unions, research institutions, etc.;

8) attraction of new specialists;

9) marketing clubs;

10) participation in supervisory boards.

3. Collection of information. This phase involves both the collection of additionally necessary data of particular value, and the consideration of the content of work, processes or factors that are associated with productivity.

The collection of information is usually solves such subtasks as:

1) definition and explanation (the concept of questionnaires);

2) data analysis of own enterprise (strengths and weaknesses);

3) tracking similar performance indicators with a partner for excellence analysis;

4) use of additional sources;

5) structuring and documenting information;

6) multi-stage, but not time-consuming verification of available information.

4. Information analysis. This stage requires highly developed creative and analytical abilities of the participants in the study of processes of excellence analysis. To analyze in this case means not only to find similarities and differences, but also to determine causal relationships.

In addition, efforts should be made to reduce exposure to factors that can reduce quality, complicate comparisons, and skew results. Here in force comes the following scheme:

1) ordering and comparison of the received information;

2) quality control of information resources at all stages (collection, analysis, etc.);

3) observation of factors that negatively affect the quality of the comparison and the results;

4) identification of shortcomings in the course of work and technological processes in comparison with other, more successful methods; finding underlying causes that explain the presence of deficiencies.

5. Purposeful and rational use of the information received. The fifth stage implies not only the implementation of the developed capabilities for optimizing all processes, but also the further development of the organization in all directions in order to withstand competitors and negative influence external environment.

Thus, benchmarking does not encourage copying or stealing innovations and achievements of the best companies, but is the stimulation of all processes. The positive, successful experience of other companies should be an incentive for further progressive innovative development own firm and its organizational structure. Identified potential, the use of which can lead to significant improvement, must necessarily be implemented through reasonable planned specific activities. In this case, there may be some discrepancy between the received data and the usual, accepted and established planning. As a result, there is a need for a radical reorientation, which in practice is not easy to implement.

However, purposeful innovation that occurs after much thought about the implications of superiority analysis leads to:

1) identifying ways and directions for improvement, identifying potential and opportunities;

2) interconnection with the standard work plan of the enterprise;

3) developing a plan for implementing the necessary changes;

4) implementation of the new plan in life.

The practical use of the results is of great importance for further innovative development.

6. Process control and analysis repetition. Control over the process of implementing the results of the analysis should be carried out at each stage gradually and purposefully. It can be carried out in two planes:

1) monitoring the development of the developed performance indicators of the organization;

2) constant verification of the achievement of intermediate goals, compliance with the norms and deadlines established by the plan for resources and work.

Methods and processes are highly subject to the action of time, constant changes are provoked by objective and subjective reasons. What was a novelty or the best achievement just a few years ago, today loses its importance, at best becomes the standard or even falls below it. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly check whether the best indicators found so far are up-to-date. Thus, superiority analysis is not a one-time method. With its constant use, the cost of superiority analysis after its implementation drops significantly, and their payback is constantly growing. This effect is achieved due to the fact that you no longer need to spend time and money on staff training, employees have already become familiar with such a tool as superiority analysis; connections and contacts with compared firms are established, they are easy to maintain through regular exchange; access to important sources of information is open, the database is already functioning, which only needs to be updated.

Excellence analysis is gaining more and more fans, including among managers, it draws the attention of people working in one firm to what is laid down as the basis for individual and collective success, and, therefore, leads to an increase in the efficiency of the entire enterprise. At the same time, “success” can and should be learned.

Excellence Analysis - it is a method that realistically mimics successful patterns of behavior. Often it leads to a "learning firm". Such enterprises willingly and regularly look for, find and implement successful methods of action. Ultimately, this is what excellence analysis and learning by excellence analysis are all about.

Advanced training is especially necessary for executives, since it is on them that the success of the organization in the market largely depends. The learning effects of superiority analysis can actually be used to improve the skills of all staff. Employees are better motivated, more attentive and interested when they, if they are not “professionals in their field”, then at least competently apply their knowledge, skills and abilities in their daily work. Thus, advanced training of managers can be carried out directly at the workplace.

Excellence analysis puts the interests and objectives of the enterprise in the center, which is very beneficial from the point of view of employers. This leads to a significant positive effect, which occurs by reducing the desire of individual workers to improve their skills as much as possible solely for their own purposes. This to some extent helps to cope with the classic problem of personnel planning. The task of the manager is to encourage employees to improve themselves, while introducing such methods of staff development that are more beneficial to the organization than to the individuals working in it.

The purpose of the learning process used in marketing is not to simply study lectures. It encourages the creation of an atmosphere that rewards continuous learning, which leads to increased productivity and better results.

There is a correlation between the analysis of superiority and the professional development of managers, as well as their retraining. In this case, you can identify six phases of learning:

1) find the will and courage to see and understand the existing problems.

In most cases, employees and management are afraid of change, are wary of it, or reject it in principle. This greatly slows down the work of those departments of the organization, the results of which do not depend on profits and losses, but affect the long-term period. Sometimes these units, due to their inactivity, try to prove their importance by making adjustments (tightening the schedule) of the structure staffing or by increasing the number of employees applying for the payment of salaries, while the contribution to the common cause is not taken into account. The productivity of such units can be assessed by comparing their results with the results of similar departments of organizations engaged in similar activities in other enterprises. It is necessary to periodically re-evaluate the activities of these departments of the enterprise. Positive changes in organizational culture contribute to the fact that department heads at the end of the reporting period have good results, finding similar processes in the external environment, making comparisons and conclusions.

Managers of organizations should initiate and encourage such comparisons in order to create and renew the entrepreneurial culture described;

2) determine what is known on the issue and from what sources.

When an enterprise in its activities comes to the point that it is impossible to be a “world-class master” in absolutely all areas, there is a need to search for new knowledge, since active search innovation and new knowledge is not the norm in today's organizations.

The main thing in the analysis of superiority is that it helps to increase receptivity and openness to new knowledge, theories, methods and technologies from information sources of the external environment. This helps to increase the motivation of employees and overcome their fears of exposing weaknesses. Thus, a situation is created in which new knowledge and ideas arise. The collection of information and the subsequent processing of the data require a large amount of time, which is often outside the normal work schedule. Reading special literature and articles should become natural, not burdensome for workers, as they earn money with their knowledge;

3) find information and use knowledge.

If we assume that the processing of information gives new knowledge, then it is logical to assume that the transformation of information itself gives the right of interpretation to all members of this process. The main goal of processing data into knowledge is to create a kind of array of sorted information that is easy to extract if necessary. A specialist engaged in the analysis and processing of arrays of information, at the same time, draws conclusions under what conditions it is possible to use the received elements of information in order to stimulate the processes of change and increase productivity;

4) consolidate new knowledge.

The bottom line is that, having once learned an easier way to produce, earn, increase economic performance, a person will no longer refuse this, but, on the contrary, will want to improve these processes in some way. Therefore, the incentive function also begins to work. The knowledge gained must be further accumulated and transformed in accordance with the requirements of the time into specific methods, technologies and skills for their subsequent use;

5) identify and remember successful methods of action and constantly modify the work of the enterprise.

Good practices need to be recorded. The systematization and implementation of good management practices in a structure that has long been established, as a rule, is very difficult, therefore, it requires special determination and additional costs from the management. The situation is complicated by the fact that such investments in their own enterprise are a long-term form of capital investment, so many turn off or stop halfway;

6) train abilities: apply newly acquired knowledge.

Newly created organizational culture, although at a huge cost (both financial and intellectual), is likely to last for a long time and be maintained by the same employees who initially protested. By creating a work environment that encourages learning, the investment is safe and has begun to pay off.

In market conditions, fierce competition has become the norm, therefore, enterprises and organizations engaged in homogeneous activities, producing the same type of goods and services, are trying to get around the competitor, seeking more and more new means. Very often, competition goes beyond business ethics. The “legal” means was and remains the buildup of competitive advantages. Benchmarking is an indispensable assistant, which is largely able to increase the growth rate of labor productivity and other economic indicators. Actually, it all depends on the direction in which the company decided to work. It is necessary to set a clear task: to determine the area of ​​research and only after that look for ways to solve it. You should not try to cover everything at once, an ordinary enterprise does not have a huge supply of free financial resources, and therefore, will not be able to bypass even the closest competitor in all respects at once. The positive point is that the work that has begun to stimulate or improve any competitive qualities will still cause positive changes in any area, which in turn will give impetus to action and strengthen faith in the implementation of progress and other successes.

Instruction

The main feature of benchmarking as an approach is the adaptation of the principles that are used in more successful companies. If you simply adopt other people's approaches, then they will not give the desired results, since the specifics of the original structure will not be taken into account. That is why a wide variety of organizations are suitable as a basis for benchmarking, not only direct competitors, but also companies that focus on a different target audience, or even companies that are far from the scope of the organization being improved.

The consequences of benchmarking are fundamental improvements, but only if you understand your own processes before starting. If you are trying to compare two models, one of which is not entirely clear to you, then you will not get a clear picture. Therefore, before starting benchmarking, they usually monitor and analyze their own production processes.

There are several types of benchmarking. Internal benchmarking is available to every company, as processes are compared within the same organization. For the comparison to be effective, two similar processes are selected, one of which is successful and the other is not. After comparison, conclusions and ideas for improvement usually appear.

Competitive benchmarking involves comparing with your competitors. The problem is that it is quite difficult to get important data about competitors, as they usually keep such things secret. It is best to choose competitors who are more successful in the market. For example, if you are a regional supplier, you can try to learn more about a company that operates worldwide. Sometimes not the most ethical and legal methods are used for competitive benchmarking: they hire front employees, send spies, or try to buy information from employees of a competing company.

Functional benchmarking is a process in which approaches to doing business or solving certain problems are compared, but not a competitor company is taken as a model, but a company operating in a completely different field of activity. Benchmarking in this case can act as one of the aspects of successful mutually beneficial cooperation.

Average benchmarking. For this process, several organizations are selected, each successful in their niche, and they try to identify effective approaches in the work of each of them. You can borrow some of the right principles from many companies and apply them in another area of ​​activity.

Once suitable processes have been identified, it is time to implement improvements within your own organization. A strategic change plan is drawn up and then consistently implemented. At the control stages, an analysis of what is happening is done, as it happens that some business processes “do not take root” or do not give the expected effect. It is important to identify such things as early as possible.

Due to the need to use external factors that affect or may affect the behavior of the company and its products on the market, interaction with partners and competitors, a philosophy and function were required related to the identification, search for the results of practice in the firms of partners, competitors and related industries, with the aim of using them in their own firms to increase productivity.

Benchmarking is close to the concept of marketing intelligence. However, marketing intelligence is the collection of confidential (semi-confidential) information about changes in the external marketing environment.

The use of benchmarking is multidirectional. Although since the mid-1970s it was carried out as part of a competitive analysis, today benchmarking has successfully established itself as a way to evaluate strategies and performance goals in comparison with leaders in their own and related industries in order to guarantee a long-term stay in the market.

Benchmarking (English bench - place, marking - mark) is a way to study the activities of business entities, primarily competitors, in order to use their positive experience in their work.

Benchmarking includes a set of tools that allow you to systematically find, evaluate all the advantages of someone else's experience and organize their use in your work.

Benchmarking is aimed at studying business. When applied to innovation, it means studying the business of other enterprises or entrepreneurs in order to identify the fundamental characteristics for developing one's innovation policy and specific types of innovation. When benchmarking, it is important to overcome the psychological complexes of managers and specialists.

Psychological complex means:

Satisfaction of the head of the economic entity with the achieved results;
unwillingness to risk money, i.e. spend money on acquiring information, pay for consultations of analysts and experts, saving all kinds of resources and money spent on marketing research, etc.;
fear that it is very difficult or impossible to do better than a competitor due to the large expenditure of all resources, including money.

There are two types of benchmarking: general and functional.

General benchmarking is a comparison of the production and sales performance of a given manufacturer's products with the business performance of a sufficiently large number of producers or sellers of a similar product. Such a comparison allows us to outline clear directions for investment activity. The parameters used to compare the characteristics of a product depend on the particular type of product.

Functional benchmarking means comparing the performance parameters of individual functions (eg operations, processes, work methods, etc.) of a manufacturer (seller) with similar parameters of the most successful enterprises (sellers) operating in similar conditions.

To carry out benchmarking, a special working group is usually created.

The functional benchmarking methodology consists of the following steps:

1. Selecting a specific function of the manufacturer's (seller's) business.
2. Select comparison options for this business function. In this case, one parameter or a group of parameters can be used. The only one, i.e. an unambiguous comparison parameter of a business function can be, for example, the profitability of the operation, the level of costs for the operation, the duration of the active period of use of this function, the degree of risk, etc. The parameter group is used when comparing such complex business functions as product quality management, cash management, etc.
3. Collection of necessary information about similar manufacturers.
4. Analysis of the received information.
5. Development of a draft of the changes made to this function.
6. Feasibility study of proposed changes.
7. Implementation of changes in the practice of the organization this business.
8. Monitoring the progress of this business and the final assessment of the quality of the change in this function.

The effectiveness of the method under consideration depends on the correct organization of the information collection system in various fields in the open press, in the analysis of products, at exhibitions, in the position of a competing company in the market, the use former employees these firms etc.

Practice shows: the process of improvement is unlimited. Benchmarking is, one might say, a perpetual motion machine of a continuous process continuous improvement company activities.

The reasons for the sharp increase in the popularity of benchmarking in recent decades are obvious. Competition has become global, and most companies are beginning to recognize the need for a comprehensive and detailed study (and subsequent use) of the best achievements of other companies for their own future success. In order not to be left behind by their competitors, all companies, regardless of size and field of activity, need to constantly study and apply the best world practices in all areas. business activity adopt all kinds of efficient technologies.

Benchmarking is:

Methodology for comparative analysis of the performance of the company and its divisions and borrowing knowledge, achievements from other companies that are "best of the best" in their field;
systematic activity aimed at finding, evaluating and studying best examples, regardless of their size, business area and geographic location;
the art of discovering what others are doing better than us, and learning, improving and applying their methods of work;
process of systematic and continuous measurement: assessment of the processes of the enterprise and their comparison with the processes of enterprises of the world's leaders, in order to obtain information useful for improving their own characteristics;
a special kind of activity to search for and obtain information about the best solutions used in the activities of other companies. These companies may be competitors, although the most successful borrowings are most often obtained from those firms that operate in completely different industries, regions, markets, in other countries, etc.

Before answering the question, “Which companies are the best?”, two other questions need to be answered, namely, “What needs to be improved in your company in the first place?” and “How capable is your company of change in this area?” To answer the questions, it is necessary to involve competitive intelligence specialists: priority improvements appear as a result of comparisons of one's own activities with those of a competitor.

The three-stage selection of a benchmarking partner is called the STC process. Its name comes from the initial letters of three English words - skim, trim, cream. The first stage - S - a cursory review (from "to skim" - read fluently, run through your eyes) when they do general review available sources of information, and collect additional available data. The second - T - putting in order (from "to trim" - to finish, grind, put in order), a detailed description of the information available at that time. The third stage - C - selection of the best (from "to cream" - "skim cream"), selection of suitable partners. In the STC process, competitive intelligence is used at all stages.

At the same time, the competitive intelligence service works for benchmarking in two modes. The first is the establishment of those elements of activity (business processes, directions, rules, technologies, procedures, etc.) in which competitors surpass your company. The second mode is to understand who is superior to competitors in the same positions.

A comparative analysis is carried out by type of activity, divisions, company as a whole in order to identify strengths and weaknesses, to establish the best working methods.

The main questions of the analysis are:

How others do it;
why they do it differently;
what conditions allow them to do it better.

Benchmarking should be understood as a process of research carried out in parallel with market research and competitive intelligence. Benchmarking is aimed at a detailed study of the internal organization, structure and activities of another enterprise, from which you can learn something useful and important for own work.

Benchmarking is a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of the system under test and the reference system, the correct functioning of which is beyond doubt. Comparing the performance of the two systems allows you to check the correct functioning of the system under test. The efficiency, correctness and speed of the system operation when performing a specific task are determined. Benchmarking is, in fact, the development of the analogy method, which, in turn, consists in using organizational forms and management mechanisms that have justified themselves in companies with similar organizational characteristics (goals, type of technology, specifics of the organizational environment, size, etc.) in relation to the analyzed organization.

According to the concept of benchmarking, any business process must be marked, i.e. structured in such a way that you can determine how well the business process is going and plan the implementation of changes that can track the company's future achievements in improving business processes.

With the help of benchmarking, it is determined why the partner organization has achieved positive results in a particular area, what actions have led it to success. There are two categories of data obtained from the results of benchmarking: firstly, the performance indicators of the organization (what has been achieved); secondly, how and by what methods and technologies it was achieved. The analysis of only one category of data does not give a complete picture of the activities of the organization. Comparison should be carried out on the same indicators and in the same areas.

TYPES OF BENCHMARKING

Currently, there are several types of benchmarking. each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Functional benchmarking is a comparison with organizations that are not among the intra-industry competitors, but carry out functional activities in which the organization is interested in improving (for example, storage, transportation). Benefits of Functional Benchmarking: Functional leaders are easy to identify, no privacy issues arise, and there is ample opportunity to discover unique, effective approaches or technologies that can be useful to the organization. But the specifics of functional benchmarking makes it difficult, and sometimes simply impossible, to adapt research results to the characteristics of an organization that performs functional benchmarking.

Internal benchmarking - making comparisons between different departments of an organization. Internal benchmarking consists in comparing different departments and departments of the same company with each other in order to find out the most effective methods of work to make a product or service more competitive. The simplicity of organizing, conducting, collecting information necessary for comparison determined the spread of this type of benchmarking. General benchmarking is the most complex and difficult to implement type that allows you to compare business processes in organizations belonging to different industries. This type provides the best opportunities for intra-organizational improvement.

Competitive benchmarking - a comparison is made with a company in the same industry (competitor) or a partner company from other industries.

In addition, depending on specific problem areas, cost benchmarking is distinguished, which is aimed at reducing costs, determining the factors influencing their formation, searching for differences in the formation of costs between companies and its other types.

Benchmarking example

A good example of the use of such analysis can be found in the history of Ford. Benchmarking was carried out by its specialists in the 90s, when the company's position on the market was seriously shaken. In the course of this analysis, studies of car models were carried out, the number of which exceeded 50.

These studies were conducted in order to clarify the advantages and, accordingly, the disadvantages of each. According to such an analysis, the parameters of the best car were identified, which would allow to achieve the performance of competitors' companies and even surpass them.

The result of this company was the car model Taurus, which became the car of the year. Subsequently, the model lost its position due to the fact that improvements began to be made, deviating it from the original concept of development, based on the analysis of competitive models.

This company has long been recognized as an international organization engaged in the creation of mobile devices and services. Nokia uses benchmarking to maintain its position in the market and develop by keeping track of time and progress in all areas of its activities (logistics, research, development, partner relations, people).

This company is a consulting firm that is engaged in market research, identifying profitable strategies and providing various types of services that allow companies to establish business processes. GIA constantly produces various benchmarking seminars. A typical project of this company includes 2 thematic seminars, where various business and analysis issues can be discussed.

Each seminar can be devoted to the following topics:

1. Economic improvements based on examples.
2. Learning how to run a profitable business based on the experience of competitors.
3. Exchange of key strategies and ideas between competent professionals from different business areas.
4. Training based on the mistakes made by other companies, as an opportunity to avoid incorrect and unnecessary financial expenses in their own work.

Benchmarking method

Benchmarking is a method of objective systematic comparison of one's own activities with the work of the best companies (divisions of one's company), understanding the reasons for the partners' business efficiency, organizing appropriate actions to improve one's own performance and their implementation.

Action plan:

1. Identification of those aspects of the company's activities for which consumers identify suppliers who have achieved business excellence.
2. Establish a benchmark company against which performance will be compared.
3. Determining how the benchmark company can achieve a high level of performance.
4. Establish performance standards for key aspects of the company's operations that exceed the level of performance of the reference company.
5. Identification of what needs to be done to bring the performance of the company to an optimal level.
6. Development of a plan for implementing the received ideas in order to bring the business in line with the standards and gain superiority over them.
7. Implementation of the plans.

Method features

The concept of benchmarking is not new. The roots of the concept of benchmarking go back centuries. As a standard for evaluating the level of production, benchmarking has been used in organizations around the world since the early 90s of the last century.

In Russia there was a powerful system of scientific and technical information. In the 70-80s, a map of the technical level of products was prepared, introduced by GOST 2.116-76. Each product subject to state certification was evaluated according to the main functional and consumer indicators in comparison with the best world samples.

Benchmarking is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. As customer requirements are constantly changing, so are the performance characteristics of competing companies.

Accordingly, the standards against which benchmarking is carried out also change, and only continuous benchmarking can help a company quickly learn about all innovations and profitably apply them in practice.

Competitive comparison indicators: price, quality, customer care and service, Feedback with the consumer, delivery, product diversity, new products and services.

The current theory and practice considers the types of benchmarking depending on the object of comparison and what is being compared. The best results come from a combination of general benchmarking involving businesses from other industries and process benchmarking.

Additional Information:

1. Don't copy, create. A company should not copy the approaches taken by other companies because they may not be in line with its business environment, product, market or culture.
2. Decisions and approaches should be directed to the future.
3. Benchmarking should be indicators that correlate with key competitive success factors.
4. Benchmarking is a rewarding process, but it needs to be applied correctly.

Advantages of the method

Provides a competitive advantage.

Disadvantages of the method:

The closed nature of companies and their own "secrecy" complex.
The existing systems of the company's financial accounting and taxation do not always allow obtaining real data on certain indicators.

Identification of the most important factors of the problem under consideration, highlighting the signs of these factors in order to prepare options for possible solutions and their implementation.

Process Benchmarking

At the same time, it is important not to forget that successful benchmarking requires identifying the main reasons for high performance. If it is useful to start by collecting general information about what other companies are doing, the ultimate goal is to discover how they work. The term “enablement tool” in benchmarking refers to the main factors that allow a company to achieve high performance, for example, in the field of product production, business processes or resource use.

Products and services

One common and natural starting point is to focus entirely on a company's products and benchmark a competitor's products, services, or entire offering. Product benchmarking improves the overall understanding of one's own competitive position in the market and can rely heavily on secondary research. It is more difficult for service providers to benchmark against competitors' offerings because the effectiveness of services is not as easily measured as it is with tangible products. Therefore, successful service benchmarking often requires a large number of interviews and field studies.

Financial indicators

Benchmarking net performance indicators does not always solve the fundamental questions of competitiveness. However, it helps to quantify possible achievements and set targets. In addition, financial performance benchmarking can often be done at relatively low cost using publicly available information.

Business processes

Benchmarking is often focused on business processes by virtue of its structure and effectiveness. this method. Business processes are of great importance because they reflect the capabilities of the company and thus are very close to the fundamental tools for realizing competitiveness. It often turns out that two companies had access to the same resources and customer base, but one of them organized its business processes more efficiently and provided more high quality at a lower cost.

However, collecting information about competitors' processes is not an easy task and may require significant initial research. When conducting business process benchmarking, competitors are an obvious but not the only benchmarking option. Often good results can be obtained by using sources of information throughout the competitor's value chain, including suppliers and distributors. In addition, benchmarking results on companies from other industries can provide valuable information.

Strategies

To make effective strategic decisions knowledge of competitor strategies is required. However, as with processes, it is not easy to analyze strategies. A significant amount of information about the company's strategy can be obtained from open sources, but many aspects of the strategy are never publicly disclosed. Despite this, there are still opportunities for successful benchmarking of strategies based on the results of primary research and analysis of the company's strategy using abductive reasoning.

Functions, groups and organizations

Benchmarking is designed to reveal not only what other companies are doing, but also how they manage to do it. Therefore, the study of the structure and organization of work in the company is one of the common topics in benchmarking. It can be about any aspect of the organization of the company's work: approved functions or created groups, divisions and business units, the number of employees working in them, etc. Part of the benchmarking of the organization can even be the compilation of characteristics for individuals.

The use of social media, such as professional networking websites, has become a new reliable source of information for this type of benchmarking. This method allows you to reduce the cost of visiting specialists and expensive primary research, and with relatively little effort, allows you to discover a large amount of valuable information.

Organization Benchmarking

Modern management is a special creative synthesis of the following three key components:

1) management as a science;
2) management as an art;
3) management as an experience of successful business practice.

Edward Deming said: "Experience teaches (makes it possible to plan and predict) only when we use it to modify and understand the theory." The modern theory and practice of advanced organizations are the objects of close attention of benchmarking.

Benchmarking is a continuous process of assessing the level of products, services and methods of work based on comparison with the strongest competitors or those companies that are recognized as leaders (Xerox CEO D.T. Kearns). The American Center for Productivity and Quality believes that benchmarking is a process of continuous exploration of the best practices that determine the highest competitiveness characteristic. Robert S. Camp, a pioneer of benchmarking since the days of Xerox, characterizes benchmarking as "the continuous search for solutions based on the best methods and processes throughout the industry (the so-called best practices) that enable the enterprise to achieve the highest achievements." Benchmarking is a continuous process that discovers, studies and evaluates the best in other organizations in order to use knowledge in the work of their organization (H. J. Harrington, J. S. Harrington).

All these definitions are united by the continuity of activities for the collection and implementation of best practices with one goal - to be a competitive company for many years. It is the continuity of the process of development and improvement that allows the company to go down in history, and not to come to naught, unable to withstand the next change in the market situation.

In this regard, benchmarking acts as a powerful tool with which an organization can conduct a comparative analysis of products, equipment, personnel and processes. It allows the organization to recognize the need to break away from the old way of doing things and makes it possible to understand that only through constant change for the better can the company survive. Every year the popularity of benchmarking is growing in the world.

What is the reason for this, why is an increasing number of organizations directing their eyes to this tool for development and gaining a competitive advantage?

Jason Grayson Jr., head of the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse, highlights the following reasons for the popularity of benchmarking:

Global competition. In the age of business globalization, companies are realizing the need for a comprehensive and detailed study of the best achievements of competitors and the subsequent use of this information for their own survival.
- Reward for quality. National quality leadership competitions are becoming more and more common. A prerequisite for participation in them, in addition to demonstrating the competitive advantages of their products by participating companies, is the use of the concept of benchmarking.
- The need to adapt and use world achievements in the field of production and business technologies. To stay ahead of the competition, all companies, regardless of size or industry, need to constantly learn and apply best practices in manufacturing and business technology.

The development of benchmarking contributes to openness and increase in business efficiency. It provides an opportunity to get answers to the questions posed by the practice of the organization, and has undeniable advantages.

Organization Benchmarking

Today, no organization can survive without seriously studying the strengths of its competitors and learning from the best in its field. The importance of the benchmarking process is that it not only tells you how successful you can be, but also tells you how to change the way you do business so that you can be as efficient as possible. Really, what's the point in identifying the gap to your competitors, industry leaders, or world-class organizations if you don't know how to improve your processes to close that gap?

Edward Tracy, vice president of AT&T's MMS Division, commented on the huge success of benchmarking: “What this process allows us to do is look for weaknesses. It is a structured discipline for reviewing a process and finding opportunities for improvement. Just 12 months ago, I was a skeptic. But when I saw it in action, I realized the benefits of this process.” Benchmarking is the path to excellence. A large number of people, teams and organizations want to be recognized as the best. Excellence gives: customers; high level of remuneration; confession; respect; power; satisfaction of employees and management.

On the path to excellence, the organization must take the following steps:

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Find out how competitors succeed in the area where you want to be the best.
3. Use the best practices of competitors in their activities.
4. Based on the acquired experience of the best, develop more advanced techniques.
5. Never stop improving.

The benchmarking process will help you get to know your organization, find out how competitive it is, identify the best practices and incorporate them into your business asset.

As an object for benchmarking in the organization, H. James Harrington and James S. Harrington distinguish:

Business processes;
- equipment;
- production processes (product manufacturing processes);
- Products & Services.

Benchmarking contributes to a more complete satisfaction of consumer requirements. The consumer always wants to get the best products at the lowest prices. This requirement acts as benchmarks for benchmarking enterprise performance and product prices. By conducting benchmarking, the company has the opportunity to check how realistic it is to meet these requirements. The time has come to answer the main question of our reasoning: “How should benchmarking be done?”.

The ten steps of the benchmarking process were proposed and justified by Robert Kemp:

1. Identification of benchmarking objects.
2. Selection of partners for benchmarking.
3. Determining the most appropriate method for collecting information. Data collection.
4. Establishment of existing backlogs of the company from partners according to the selected performance indicators.
5. Establishing the desired levels of company performance.
6. Communicate the results of benchmarking to all stakeholders and receive assistance in their application in practice.
7. Establishment of specific goals and objectives in the field of improving the efficiency of the company.
8. Development of action plans for their achievement and solution.
9. Carrying out planned activities and tracking their results.
10. Review of previously selected benchmarks.

The hardest part of the benchmarking process is recognizing that your organization does not have enough knowledge, but those who have embarked on the difficult path of transformation have achieved impressive results.

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC - digital equipment). DEC has benchmarked its manufacturing operations and found that they are 30% to 40% overpriced.

As a result of process and product benchmarking, the following changes occurred:

The duration of the new product development cycle has decreased from 30 months to 12;
- the cost of developing a new product has decreased by 25%;
- only in power generation and in modular processes, the cost of opportunities from improvement is defined as $300,000;
- benchmarking of property management processes led to an additional cost reduction by 12.7%;
- in one of the logistics services, inventory turnover increased by 30%, and productivity increased by 25%.

The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain achieved the following benefits as a result of process benchmarking:

Housekeeping time reduced by up to 65%;
- the number of quality complaints decreased by 42%;
- productivity per employee increased by 15%;
- Decreased by 33% the number of service personnel intrusions into the rooms of residents;
- increased the level of security of the rooms during the cleaning of the rooms.

The benchmarking procedure reduces the cost of goods and services, cycle time and error rate by an average of 20 to 60%. In contrast to the usual rate of continuous quality improvement of 10-20% per year, benchmarking can guarantee progress of up to 200% in just eight months.

As a result of a survey of 770 organizations in Europe, the Benchmarking Center (UK) found that:

Tom Carter, vice president of quality at Alcoa, said: "We use benchmarking to find out what level of efficiency can actually be achieved and how to reduce the gap between current levels of efficiency and optimal."

Benchmarking is a continuous activity to systematically determine best systems, processes, procedures and practices. A benchmarking project that reduces lead time from 30 days to 3 days, but does not increase the organization's market share, value added per employee, return on property, or customer or consumer satisfaction, is not the right solution. Benchmarking processes that implement cost-optimized solutions actually improve the performance of an organization. Recently, one of the pioneers of benchmarking in Germany, Professor Rolf Pfeiffer of the Export Academy in Reutlingen, was asked the following question: “Which management tool would you recommend for an organization if the company has already been running successfully for several years?” Professor Pfeiffer's response was immediate: "Benchmarking!" The businessman was surprised and asked about the reasons. The answer was short: “If someone - whoever he is - works successfully for a long period of time, he begins to consider himself wise. In the confidence of his "omniscience" he begins to forget about competition. But competitors will overtake you, I will fight you as soon as you show at least some weak side. Thus, benchmarking is just right for such enterprises that are satisfied with their performance, but at the same time want to compare their achievements with competitors.

There are very successful German enterprises. There are many brilliant enterprises in Europe. These highest achievements do exist. So why these high results are impossible for you? You don't need to reinvent the wheel for this. You need to be willing to look at your enterprise with a critical eye and learn from others. Undeniably, a benchmarking project is expensive - a real benchmarking study usually takes about six months - but there is always a way. Benchmarking contests are of great help in this regard.

Industry competitions such as the International Best Factory Awards/International Best Service Awards for industrial enterprises and the service industry, which are successfully held around the world and enjoy the state support of the host countries, are deprived of all these shortcomings.

In Germany, for example, the Export Academy in Reutlingen organizes an annual benchmarking competition. Winners receive the International Best Factory Award (International Best Factory Award), abbreviated as IBFA. It also established the International Best Service Award (IBSA) (International Service Sector Award). At the same time, the Academy cooperates with the Cranfield University School of Management in England and SDA Bocconi in Milan.

In Germany, these events help to look at your potential from the outside and see opportunities for improvement.

The statement of one of the participants of the competition is a vivid confirmation of this: “Four aspects turned out to be especially useful for us:

Success through analysis: Each participation is accompanied by an exploration of one's own enterprise. Already this step often brings ideas that will not appear just like that.
- Success through partnerships: Competitions provide many contacts. The enterprises taking part in them are ready for openness. Thus, an important exchange arises - one that can translate into partnership and benefits all participants.
- Success through change: A constructive consideration of one's own strengths and weaknesses strengthens receptivity to important potentialities. Once they are defined, the only question left is how to change yourself accordingly in order to be able to use them. These active changes keep the enterprise in shape.
- Success through orientation: Only regular comparison with other successful companies provides a starting point for one's own success.

The slogan of the German company "Rose plastic":

“He who no longer strives to become better can no longer be successful,” perfectly expresses the general meaning of the above aspects of the competition.

Many companies are critical of benchmarking. However, once the process is complete, benchmarking becomes part of the philosophy of the enterprise.

Reviews of companies participating in the competition:

“We began to engage intensively with our processes and began to understand them better.”
“After filling out the questionnaire, we understood what indicators should be assessed. We didn’t pay attention to many numbers before.”
"Benchmarking has brought us a culture of continuous learning and improvement."
“After involving all departments and employees in the benchmarking process, everyone has a better understanding of the company's processes.”
“After we won the benchmarking competition, our employees are proud to work for us.”
“Thanks to benchmarking, our goals have become clearer, now we know our strengths and weaknesses.”

The successful implementation of the strategy is another key problem that benchmarking solves. In fact, benchmarking is an alternative method of strategic planning, in which tasks are determined not on the basis of what has been achieved, but on the basis of an analysis of competitors' performance.

Benchmarking technology draws in single system strategy development, industry analysis and competitor analysis. Industry analysis is the first step in developing a strategy. It includes studying the degree and nature of competition, customer behavior patterns and purchasing power, supplier behavior patterns, barriers to entry into the industry, threats to substitute products and services, and other features. Industry analysis provides insight into the earnings potential of an industry average and helps identify the reasons why some companies outperform others. Competition analysis allows you to understand how much attention a competitor pays to your lines of business, that is, how much resources it will spend on the development of these areas. Having decided on the industry analysis and analysis of competitors, they proceed to the stage of developing a strategy. You need to answer the question, how can your company beat the competition? Using key success factors in the context of various functional areas: expansion of production, introduction of new products and services, changes in pricing, sales and delivery, marketing, personnel, technologies, etc.

This operational work is carried out by the organization every year, requires the diversion of large financial resources and uses the potential of the company's employees. A significant reduction in time, and most importantly, financial resources gives the annual participation in the benchmarking competition, where the company receives a comparison of results not only within the industry, but also in an international project receives development criteria for organizations in other countries. Information as a magical source and the beginning of the strategic planning process becomes available to you in the form of a report for the contestant. To become competitive, you need to improve at a faster pace than your competitors and go beyond the country to see the promise and opportunities of the global community. It is best to carry out checks regularly and under the same conditions - but at least once a year. Then the manager immediately sees progress and can set new goals and develop a program to achieve them in a really changing market situation.

An analysis of the statistical data of enterprises - participants in the IBFA / IBSA competition in Germany - fixes the following positive changes in enterprises:

Increasing staff qualifications;
- improving the quality of products;
- reducing the number of manufacturing defects;
- reducing the cost of eliminating defects;
- increasing the reliability of supplies;
- improvement of planning and organization of production;
- shortening the cycle of introduction of new products;
- change in the scale of companies.

The best results are achieved by those companies that take a comprehensive approach to continuous improvement and integrate all improvement activities. “A modern company, like a high-class athlete, must constantly maintain excellent shape in order to compete with competitors and win against them in the face of an unprecedented intensification of competition due to globalization, when it has to compete with the world's best players not only on the outside, but also on domestic market". To do this, the company needs benchmarking - a relatively new approach to the strategic planning of companies' activities that has become very promising in recent years in management circles.

Enterprise Benchmarking

The formation of the concept of benchmarking in the world has gone through several stages of its development:

1. Product analysis;
2. Benchmarking competitiveness;
3. Process benchmarking;
4. Strategic benchmarking;
5. Global benchmarking.

In theory, there are several types of benchmarking:

1. internal benchmarking - performed between departments in the same organization;
2. competitive benchmarking - comparing the performance of your company with competitors;
3. functional benchmarking - comparison with organizations that are not competitors;
4. general benchmarking - comparison of business processes with organizations belonging to different market sectors.

Speaking about the history of benchmarking, we can mention that the Global network benchmarking (Global Benchmarking Network, GBN), as a community of independent benchmarking centers. Created by such countries as the USA, England, Italy, Germany, Sweden. Today it unites similar centers in about 20 countries of the world. In the US, there is the Melcolm Baldrige Quality Award, which involves the active use of benchmarking tools. With regard to the legal restriction of benchmarking, US law does not impose any restrictions. In Europe, on the contrary, Article 85 of the European Treaty prohibits the signing of agreements with other enterprises that may harm free competition or harm the European market.

In Russia, the use of this method is still insufficient compared to countries such as the USA, Japan and others. For example, the use of benchmarking in foreign countries is regulated and supported at the state level, specialized companies are created to search for benchmarking partners, in Russia there is no such practice. In our country, there is only one annual major event that supports the development of benchmarking - the "Government Quality Award", thanks to which an enterprise can improve various aspects of its activities and become a benchmark for comparison with other enterprises. The award also enables the laureates to secure their image, to establish themselves as a reliable manufacturer of high-quality products, and helps to attract new partners.

The table shows examples of the use of various types of benchmarking in Russian enterprises.

Examples of the use of different types of benchmarking in Russian enterprises:

As can be seen from the table, competitive benchmarking is very popular in Russia.

The paper describes the experience of using benchmarking of Western enterprises in the Irbit Motorcycle Plant (IMZ) in the following areas:

The production structure of the enterprise: it was necessary to determine which production units to leave; after studying Western experience, the management decided to sell the foundry, forging and several other workshops, as a result of which IMZ saved money on the maintenance of unnecessary equipment.
- production efficiency: the Indian motorcycle company Royal Enfield was considered as a benchmark; it turned out that approximately the same number of people work on the standard under study, but based on one employee, 25 motorcycles are produced at Royal Enfield, and 1.7 at IMZ. It was decided to apply the following measures: reduce equipment downtime, train workers in additional professions and improve their skills.

The objects of competitive benchmarking can also be other areas of the organization's activities, for example:

Performance indicators: OAO Severstal, a steel plant with a full production cycle, benefited from the experience of several domestic companies and 56 Western steel companies; after the analysis, the areas in which it is necessary to carry out work were revealed, namely: cost reduction, market development and the introduction of new technologies.
- product quality: the management of the Stepan Razin plant turned to the Baltika plant to compare the quality of the beer produced; the result of the analysis was the purchase of new equipment for the fermentation of beer, after which the quality of products has improved markedly.
- reporting indicators: CJSC Peter-Star, a telecom operator, compares reporting indicators in a certain format with another similar company, Golden Telecom. Some performance indicators are compared with Svyazinvest data.

An example of functional benchmarking is the activity of Nizhpharm. The object of comparison with the reference enterprise, which was the company Wimm Bill Dann, was the display of goods in pharmacies. After conducting research, it turned out that Wimm Bill Dann products are always in the best places. After analyzing their activities, the management of the Nizhpharm company changed its approaches to merchandising and came to the conclusion that the best place in the pharmacy for medicines is to the right of the cash register window.

Another type of benchmarking is internal. It is used when there is a need to analyze the processes or work of employees in one organization. In this paper, we can get acquainted with an example of the use of benchmarking in the banking sector. The use of the internal type of benchmarking is also clearly described in the work, where it was used by the leadership of the main clinical hospital (GKB) No. 1 of the city of Novosibirsk. The object of the study was the quality of medical care. Among all the departments, the top three were selected and then the experience of their work in the organization was set as an example for other departments of the hospital, which were asked to apply it.

Despite the presented examples, the use of this method is still insignificant in our country. For its successful application, it is necessary to take into account the specifics Russian enterprises.

The following are the reasons hindering the full and successful application of benchmarking:

1. Insufficient development of a full-fledged ethical culture of companies;
2. Lack of sufficient practice in our country;
3. Influence of features of national accounting;
4. Insufficient use of management accounting procedures;
5. Lack of trust in benchmark companies and benchmarking partners.

Company Benchmarking

First, benchmarking reveals best practices commercial activities and successful business processes. It is often unclear how successful companies achieve high operational efficiency. By observing and carefully researching how these companies operate, you can identify the processes, skills, or competencies that contribute to their success, and then apply the same methods to your own company.

Secondly, the knowledge gained about other enterprises can be easily applied in your organization.

Third, a company can gain a competitive advantage by applying the best practices from other industries in its field of activity. For example, a small family farm that sells its own agricultural products online can use the same strategies as those used on social media such as internet blogs to gain attention and gain new customers. It will be a new way to attract customers, and it can lead, at least temporarily, to a competitive advantage.

There are three main types of benchmarking:

Strategic benchmarking. To determine the best way to stay competitive, companies identify winning strategies (usually outside their industry) of successful firms and implement them in their own organizations. In addition, strategic goals are compared in the order in which new strategic decisions are highlighted.

Benchmarking by performance indicators (competitive benchmarking). This type of benchmarking is based on a comparative analysis of your company's products and services. Benchmarking primarily focuses on product and service quality, product features, price, benefit, reliability, design, and customer satisfaction, but can include anything that has measurable metrics, including processes. Performance benchmarking helps you determine how good your products and services compare to those of your competitors. Process benchmarking. The basis of this type of benchmarking is to study companies that are similar to yours in order to identify best practices that can be applied to their own business processes in order to improve their efficiency. Process benchmarking is a separate species, but it usually flows from competitive benchmarking. This is because companies first identify the weak competitive points of their products or services and then focus on key processes to eliminate those weaknesses.

Four ways of benchmarking:

In addition to views, there are four ways in which benchmarking can be done. It is important to choose the best one: this will reduce the cost of benchmarking and increase the chances of finding "best standards" that you can really rely on.

Internal benchmarking. In large organizations that operate in geographically dispersed locations or manage the production of a large number of both diverse products and services, the same functions and processes are carried out by different teams, divisions or departments. In some departments it is done well, in others it is worse. Internal benchmarking is used to compare the performance of individual teams, divisions, or departments to highlight those that perform better and share their knowledge and experience within the company with other teams to achieve better performance. This is typically used by companies that have recently expanded geographically but have not yet established proper knowledge sharing systems across departments. If such systems exist, then there is no need to use internal benchmarking to implement best practices.

Functional benchmarking. It is useful for functional unit managers to analyze how well their units are performing compared to those in other companies. It is fairly easy to identify the best marketing, finance, HR, or operations departments in other companies because they excel in exactly what they do, and then apply their methods to their functional areas. In this way, companies can consider a wide range of organizations not even related to the industry, and instead of improving individual processes, they can improve entire functional areas.

General benchmarking. General benchmarking refers to comparisons that "focus on excellent work processes rather than business practices within a particular organization."

Competitive benchmarking

The purpose of benchmarking is to establish, based on research, the need for change and the likelihood of success as a result of these changes. Benchmarking is carried out as part of a competitive analysis and is not new to most businesses, although it is a more detailed and streamlined function than a competitive analysis method or approach.

Benchmarking types:

1) Benchmarking competitiveness - measuring the characteristics of an enterprise, researching specific products, process capabilities or administrative methods and comparing them with the characteristics of competitors.
2) Internal benchmarking - the characteristics of production units are compared with similar business processes within the organization.
3) Functional benchmarking - specific functions of two or more organizations in the same sector are compared.
4) Process Benchmarking - comparing the performance of certain processes and limited functions with enterprises that have the best performance in similar processes.

When conducting benchmarking, the following stages can be distinguished:

Definition of the benchmarking object;
Choosing a benchmarking partner;
Search for information;
Analysis;
Implementation.

A competitive strategy is a set of practices and initiatives aimed at attracting and satisfying customers, resisting competitors and strengthening market position. The concept of competitive strategy is narrower than the concept of business strategy, because the latter, in addition to the methodology of competition, includes actions and management plans for solving the entire range of strategic tasks.

The goal of a competitive strategy is to achieve superiority over competitors in providing consumers with products and services that are in demand and thereby gain competitive advantage and market leadership. In addition, competitive strategy includes offensive and defensive actions, the allocation and reallocation of resources to maintain long-term competitive opportunities and advantageous competitive position, as well as tactical actions taken when market conditions change. Businesses around the world are trying to develop unorthodox competitive strategies. Since a company's competitive actions are tailored to the characteristics of its market position and the general situation in the industry, there are countless options for competitive strategies - there are as many competitive strategies as there are competitors.

However, in general, differences in strategies are determined by two factors: the goals that the organization pursues in the market, and the basis of competitive advantage - low costs or differentiation:

1) Cost leadership strategy, which provides for a reduction in production costs and, as a result, the possibility of setting lower prices for products, which, in turn, attracts a large number of consumers. This strategy is theoretically based on the "effect of accumulated experience": the longer the enterprise operates and produces more products, the lower the unit costs per unit of output.
2) The strategy of broad differentiation, which is aimed at giving the company's products specific properties and features that will distinguish it from competing products. The strategy of broad differentiation also focuses on attracting more consumers through product features that in the best way will take into account the needs of customers.
3) The third approach refers to fixing a certain market segment and concentrating the firm's efforts on a selected market segment (segmentation strategy). In this case, the company thoroughly clarifies the needs of a certain market segment for a certain type of product. In this case, the firm may seek to reduce costs or pursue a policy of specialization in the production of the product. It is also possible to combine these two approaches. However, what is absolutely mandatory for the implementation of the third type of strategy is that the firm must build its activities primarily on an analysis of the needs of customers in a particular market segment. That is, in its intentions, it must proceed not from the needs of the market in general, but from the needs of quite specific or even specific clients. The market segment is defined on the basis of income.

You can always distinguish between mass-produced goods and luxury goods:

A niche market strategy based on low costs, which focuses the enterprise on a narrow segment of consumers, where the enterprise is ahead of its competitors due to low costs;
- a market niche strategy based on product differentiation, which aims to provide a narrow segment of consumers with products that fully meet their tastes and preferences.

Benchmarking tools

The first stage - you need to decide what exactly needs to be improved in the organization, choose the criteria by which you will evaluate the "exemplary" enterprise, as well as the point of view from which other people's successes (director or buyer) will be evaluated.
The second stage is the search for, for example, successful and unclassified companies.
The third stage is the collection of information (databases, publications in the press, reports on the activities of the enterprise, conferences and seminars, fairs, exhibitions, business associations, marketing and training organizations, as well as business acquaintances).
The fourth stage is the analysis of the collected information. It is important not only to find out the similarities and differences in the work of the native enterprise and the "sample", but also to identify the reasons for the backlog, to highlight useful experience.
The fifth stage is the implementation of successful solutions adapted to the business, but in no case be blindly copying the general model and concept, tracking the dynamics of changes and evaluating the work done.

Benchmarking in the CIS countries is difficult to do, primarily because domestic business cannot be called transparent.

Reporting on the activities of the organization, the number of employees, sales and deliveries are usually carefully guarded from prying ears and eyes. Based on the foregoing, an official offer to exchange such information can even cause aggression. It is better to conduct such negotiations in an informal setting.

Participation in a regional or industry benchmarking club is often used as an external approach. A group of companies, usually from the same region or industry, agrees to work together for the purpose of exchanging information. This approach requires participants to have the same understanding of the company's benchmarking tools and the purpose of benchmarking. It is customary to agree on rules and a code of conduct regarding issues such as the scope of the project, the degree of "openness" and confidentiality.

For example, studying financial activities, customer satisfaction, waste rates, dealing with suppliers and results. production activities. Enterprise visits ("within the industry") - visiting other organizations - is a popular form of benchmarking. In general, it is easier to understand how others perform their processes through observation and practical demonstration. Often these visits take place informally and are organized through personal contacts. A more formal approach can be taken to study a wide range of companies in many sectors.

Benchmarking in management

Managers of public sector organizations, as well as government officials in many countries around the world, have begun to use benchmarking as a tool for evaluating the work performed in order to apply the best management practices of other successful organizations.

National and local governments around the world are looking for ways to reduce costs, increase management efficiency, increase the return on budget spending, and improve the quality of services provided to citizens. However, in order to do this, it is necessary to carefully and carefully study the existing experience and adopt the techniques and management methods of the most successful organizations in both the public and private sectors.

Consider the extent to which benchmarking can be used to stimulate competition in the government controlled.

There are certain arguments for this:

1. Thanks to benchmarking, the production of state structures is oriented towards the preferences of citizens. It compares the services provided and performance indicators of various territorial administrations (cities, settlements, communes, etc.). This kind of analysis makes it possible to fill in the gaps in the list of services that are provided in a particular place, or, conversely, to critically consider the need to use resources for the product of the administration’s activities that is available in a given place, and the possibility of its production on market principles. For a more correct assessment of the result, the analytical function of comparison within the framework of benchmarking should be accompanied by the identification of citizens' preferences through surveys.
2. Benchmarking also contributes to the optimization of resource allocation by identifying inefficiencies in the production of standard products of administrations and provides directions for increasing efficiency. It also acts as a tool for assessing investment directions, since the analysis determines what resources are still needed for the production of certain significant services. In this regard, it also contributes to the growth of innovations, primarily in terms of improving the organizational side of the activity, and their dissemination in the executive authorities.
3. The results of the analysis within the framework of benchmarking also provide information for improving the system of remuneration of civil servants.
4. Continuous learning and improvement process induced by benchmarking increases work flexibility and adaptability government organizations to changes in environment and the needs of citizens.

The above considerations indicate that benchmarking is a successful management technology that should be used in domestic practice. Its application can be very successful, especially since there is considerable practical experience in the use of methods of social competition in the public sphere in the recent past.

In the future, it is benchmarking that can serve as a starting point for determining the areas of public administration that need to be improved in the first place and, therefore, stimulate innovation.

The success of a benchmarking project lies in the strict observance and responsible implementation of each of its stages. The reference matching algorithm does not have strict regulation.

The planning phase, which consists of three stages. During planning, you need to determine what to compare. What parameters and characteristics of the firm (enterprise) and competitors should be the object of comparative analysis. Next, competing companies are identified.

And finally, the methods of collecting information and the process of its accumulation are selected:

1. Analytical phase (analysis phase), which includes two stages. During the analytical phase, the difference in the characteristics of products, services and, accordingly, competitors is determined. Next, levels of future performance are designed that will allow you to get ahead of competitors.
2. The integration phase, which also consists of two stages. During this phase, the results of the comparison are discussed and acceptable approaches are developed to stay ahead of competitors in the compared areas of activity. On this basis, specific goals should be formulated before all functional divisions firms (enterprises).
3. Phase of actions (implementation), consisting of three stages (steps). During the period of organizing the fulfillment of the goals set, a specific action plan is developed, implemented, and its implementation is monitored. Based on the results of the control, the necessary adjustments should be made to the planned action plans to achieve specific competitive advantages. The result of all this work should be the achievement of the leading position of the company and the strengthening of its financial position.

The proposed approach to benchmarking, which includes 10 stages, will allow the surveyed enterprise: to rely on the experience of other organizations; take into account modern experience, not outdated ideas; significantly reduce the costs of rework, duplication; improve understanding of what is being done and how effectively activities are being carried out; organize more efficient management; set realistic goals; determine the necessary changes; increase employee accountability.

Further development of benchmarking will contribute to the openness of business, increase its efficiency, which is so necessary for the Kazakhstani economy today. Mastering this method of management and business improvement will allow domestic enterprises and companies, not only large, but also small and medium-sized, to keep up with the times and take their rightful place in the world market in the near future.

Quality Benchmarking

It is on how the issues of synthesis of the above fundamental elements, as well as constant monitoring of fluctuations occurring in the commodity markets and timely updating of the product line, will be solved, the level of functioning, or rather, the survival of an economic entity. There are many reasons leading to the bankruptcy of enterprises, the collapse of various undertakings and projects.

The main reasons for failed projects include:

1) insufficient degree of study (research) of the market;
2) reassessment of the market volume;
3) unsuccessful R&D results;
4) unsuccessful determination of the price;
5) low quality of the product;
6) insufficient advertising;
7) incorrect positioning of the novelty on the market;
8) incorrect assessment of the costs of the project;
9) insufficient assessment of the degree of competition.

Due to these reasons, various difficulties arise for enterprises: on the one hand, it is necessary to conduct fundamental and applied research and development of new products, products, goods, etc., and on the other hand, the probability of a successful result is low.

In order to achieve the expected successful result, the enterprise must seriously analyze and control each stage of the newly designed products.

The main of these stages are:

1) generation of ideas. The design and development process should begin with a thorough analysis of the intended markets for the company's products, as well as a consideration of currently available proposals for this problem. important hallmark benchmarking is a strict requirement to conduct this process constantly and by all personnel of the enterprise, regardless of their position. In this case, all available sources of information should be used, including the Internet, industry and other newsletters, foreign media (Wirtschafs Woche, Economist, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel, Top Agrar, etc.) . To resolve issues with translations of foreign economic literature, as well as to work with business partners from near and far abroad, it is advisable to have a translator (s) on the staff of the enterprise, which, in fact, is now happening at many joint ventures in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Samara, etc. Based on the information received, processed and analyzed, the company's managers must decide on the choice of products being developed and manufactured, which markets should be kept in mind, and on the basis of this, form short-term, medium-term and long-term plans .

At the same time, it is necessary to have a clear vision, which boils down to:

A) maximizing profit
b) achieving a specific sales volume (market share);
c) winning the favor of customers;
d) sales growth.

The main components of benchmarking when collecting ideas about a product and its characteristics, especially the quality of a manufactured and sold product, are:

A) clientele
b) competitors' products.

The purpose of benchmarking for the selection and analysis of existing innovative proposals is to optimize them with subsequent effective implementation. The goal of the next steps is to optimize performance. First, in the process of project implementation, it is necessary to collect and select ideas that deserve the attention of the management and marketers of the enterprise. The main task of this stage is the maximum identification and elimination of unnecessary ideas about the development and production of goods.

The essential point at this stage is a thorough unbiased analysis of the selected ideas.

2) development of the concept of a new product and its verification. After the selection, the accepted ideas must undergo a conceptual study, taking into account the real possibility of not only production, but also the sale of manufactured goods in various markets. It should be emphasized that the idea of ​​a product is understood as the possibility of producing and offering the material value necessary for the market, satisfying the needs of the maximum number of consumers. From this follow the tasks that require their urgent and optimal solution. In the process of solving the above problems, the entire team of the enterprise, regardless of their position, needs to work out the accepted proposals - from organizing the effective production of a new or improved product to its profitable sale.

As a result of this, although difficult, but very necessary work the management of the enterprise (management of different levels of management) should receive answers to the following questions:

1) clarity of the concept;
2) availability of benefits;
3) reliability of information;
4) the degree of satisfaction of needs;
5) intention to buy;
6) subjects of purchase and use;
7) suggestions for improvement;
8) estimated price.

The main components of the success of the enterprise in a dynamically developing market are the continuous improvement of the quality of manufactured and sold products through a carefully thought-out system of incentives and punishments; updating the line of products (goods) and production technology. Newly created products, taking into account the proposals developed and accepted for implementation and subsequent scientific and technical developments, should ensure concrete success in certain markets. A very important and strong feature of benchmarking in an enterprise is the strict implementation of the strict principle of urgent implementation into practice of the results of research and development work not only applied, but also fundamental levels, which in turn implies a close relationship between scientific research and their industrial development. The current exemplary set of works on the creation and development of new products is given below.

Of great importance in optimizing the functioning of the system for creating and developing a new product with a predetermined quality are rationally developed technology and organization of the production of goods, the main elements of which can be:

1) technical level of the product;
2) terms of creation and development;
3) the highest possible level of product (product, product) quality;
4) increase in production volumes;
5) increase in the product range;
6) the minimum level of costs in the preparation of production and in the process of production itself;
7) the expected cost reduction in the operation of the product.

In order to solve these problems, benchmarking specialists should carry out a certain set of works.

Among the many factors contributing to the successful conduct of business, the relevance of launching a new product (product, product) to the market is of great importance. It is the timeliness in meeting the needs of customers in a particular product that is the most important element of the financial and economic strategy of each enterprise operating in the market. The available historical experience has proved that delays in bringing products (products, goods) to the market, regardless of the reasons that caused these delays, make unnecessary efforts and costs for their production and sale, i.e., lead to loss of resources, significant losses, failure to fulfill their obligations to shareholders, the state, and sometimes, unfortunately, to bankruptcy. It is clear that the process of development, testing and adjustment of mass production of goods is a rather complex and responsible process, including many stages and stages performed by various structural divisions of the enterprise. It should be worked out taking into account the time factor, for which it is recommended to use calculation and visual aids. One of the types of such benefits is a schedule. The pre-production schedule is an essential part of the business planning process. This schedule should also take into account the necessary stages of work, high quality, short production and launch times on the market, as well as possible deviations from the parameters adopted in the business plans and undesirable consequences and sanctions for the occurrence of these deviations.

The main tasks and methods of reducing the time of creation and development of new products, as well as the comprehensive improvement of their quality, regulated by the R&D tape schedule, are given below:

1) development of terms of reference;
2) development of a technical proposal;
3) draft design;
4) working draft;
5) consideration and approval of product quality standards;
6) production of a prototype;
7) bench tests;
8) full tests;
9) trial marketing;
10) analysis of test results and marketing research;
11) adjustment of the manufactured product (product);
12) start in a series.

For the implementation of the above stages, it is desirable to use line graphs. Currently, this planning and controlling toolkit has been adopted by many medium and large enterprises.

However, it has some serious drawbacks:

1) does not show the relationship of individual works, which makes it difficult to assess the significance of each work for the fulfillment of intermediate and final goals;
2) does not reflect the dynamics of developments;
3) does not allow to periodically adjust the schedule due to changes in the timing of the work;
4) does not give clear points of overlap and conjugation of adjacent stages;
5) does not allow applying a mathematically justified calculation of the implementation of the planned set of works;
6) does not make it possible to optimize the use of available resources and the timing of the development as a whole.

Planning and managing a set of works to improve the technical and commercial characteristics of a product in every possible way (especially its quality) is a complex and, as a rule, contradictory task. Analysis and evaluation of various characteristics of the functioning of production, financial and social systems can be carried out by various methods. Currently, SPU (network planning and management method) has good reviews. The main planning document in this system is the network schedule, which is an information-analytical model, where, with varying degrees of reliability, interdependencies, relationships, as well as the results of work that are of great importance for the implementation of the goals, are reflected. Visually, this model is a network graph, consisting of arrows and circles, depicting individual works and events.

The sequence of the process of managing and controlling the progress of product development includes the following operations:

1) compiling a list of all actions and intermediate results (events) when performing a set of works and their graphical reflection;
2) an estimate of the time to complete each work, and then the calculation of the network schedule to determine the deadline for achieving the goal;
3) optimization of the calculated terms and necessary costs;
4) operational management of the progress of work through periodic monitoring and analysis of the information received on the implementation of tasks and the development of corrective decisions.

From the point of view of a manager, work is any processes (actions) that lead to the achievement of certain results (events).

The concept of "work" can have the following meanings:

1) real work - work that requires time and resources;
2) waiting - a process that requires only time (drying, aging, relaxation, etc.);
3) effective work, or dependence, is an image of a logical connection between works.

An event in a network model can have the following values:

1) initial - the beginning of the implementation of a set of works;
2) final - achievement of the ultimate goal of the work package;
3) intermediate (or simply an event) - the result of one or more of the works included in it;
4) boundary - an event that is common to two or more primary or private networks.

Let us briefly consider the main elements of the SPU.

An essential element of the SPL is the path, i.e. the sequence of certain jobs in the network, in which the end of one sequence coincides with the beginning of the next.

The most important parameters of the network model are:

1) critical path;
2) event time reserves;
3) time reserves of tracks and works.

The critical path is the longest path of the network. In the process of business planning of work on the production and sale of products, the specified critical path provides an opportunity to determine the timing of the end of the cycle of work (events).

The event time reserve is a delayed period of time, characterized by the occurrence of one or another event without tangible consequences of failures to complete the technological block of work.

The latest allowable time is the time of occurrence of an event, exceeding which will cause the same delay in the occurrence of the last event.

The earliest possible date for an event to occur is the time for completion of work prior to the event.

The total reserve of travel time shows how much the duration of all works can be increased in total.

Free slack is the maximum amount of time that you can extend or delay the start of a job.

It should be emphasized that the initially developed network model is usually not the best in terms of work completion time and resource use. A carefully conducted critical analysis allows us to assess the feasibility of the structure of this model, determine the degree of complexity of each work, the load on the production equipment of the work performers at all stages of their implementation.

Benchmarking project

How to implement an appropriate strategy to become the best of the best?

What should be changed or kept in the enterprise to become the best?

Why own enterprise is not the best?

However, most experts are of the opinion that benchmarking means borrowing management methods from others who are doing well, by comparing with other areas of business or competitors and identifying the weaknesses of your enterprise.

At ICI fibers (fibres), benchmarking is viewed as learning by comparison, which has two levels - a strategic level and a level of individual processes.

In Japan, where benchmarking has been practiced for a long time, the most common form is product benchmarking, which is based on the “me too” psychology. Less popular is benchmarking of functions and processes.

When determining the effect that benchmarking can provide, it should be borne in mind that no one has ever questioned the fact that the exchange of experience and its study are beneficial. True, we should not forget that "cross-pollination" is fruitful not for every enterprise. Therefore, the need for benchmarking must be proven. Benchmarking becomes the art of discovering what others are doing better than us and learning, improving and applying their methods of work.

Thus, the benefit of benchmarking is that the production and marketing functions become most manageable when the best methods and technologies of other than their own enterprises or industries are researched and implemented in their enterprise. This can lead to improved business, increased efficiency, beneficial competition, and customer satisfaction.

Essentially, there are two main types of benchmarking - internal and external benchmarking.

Internal benchmarking refers to the comparison of processes within the same enterprise or group. Since in this case no comparison with external processes and foreign technology is made, the potential for innovation is very limited here.

Significantly more benefit from external and cross-industry benchmarking. When comparing your own processes (at your own enterprise) with the most successful processes across the industry, a company stands out with a particularly high potential for new impulses and innovations.

The benchmarking project is carried out in order to improve certain aspects of the business process of the enterprise. The basis for this is the preparation of information about internal processes and the determination of a systematic method for collecting data. A well-established approach is to develop questionnaires with relevant key performance indicators (KPIs, English language KPIs - key performance indicators). KPIs are indicators for determining the volume of business activity. Having compiled such a questionnaire, one can begin to purposefully identify suitable enterprises for the survey and send them appropriate requests for the benchmarking project.

The experience of long-term application of benchmarking shows that a direct comparison of an enterprise with its direct competitor is almost impossible. For this purpose, in particular, enterprises with identical or similar production methods or business processes are more suitable. The primary analysis of advantages and disadvantages is carried out, as a rule, on the basis of a comparison of quantitative indicators entered in the questionnaire.

At the next stage, a qualitative comparison of business processes is made. To do this, relevant seminars are held, and business processes are compared and analyzed on the ground, during mutual visits to enterprises. Through the exchange of experiences, innovative resources are identified and a definition of specific successful practices as best practice is developed. The positive components identified can then be quickly adapted to the respective conditions and implemented in a targeted manner in the home enterprise.

An example of cross-industry benchmarking: comparing a computer manufacturer with a message from a sales organization. The starting point for the benchmarking project was a computer manufacturer's difficulties with picking and shipping. In this regard, there were high costs and unsatisfactory punctuality of deliveries (timeliness), which was only 70%. After compiling a description of the production processes and a questionnaire, inquiries were sent to various enterprises. As a suitable partner company, it was possible to attract a large mail-order company for household goods to participate in the project. The company was famous for the efficiency of order fulfillment and punctuality of deliveries. The lessons learned from this project were enormous. A computer manufacturer was able to optimize its order fulfillment business in just 6 months. As a result, cost savings amounted to 10%, and on-time delivery of goods reached 95%.

In search of best practice, innovation-oriented industrial enterprises face a number of challenges, namely:

Development of a continuous process of self-improvement based on the constant collection and analysis of information about a competitor;
in improving indicators to compare previous experience with the standards and achievements of leading enterprises;
studying the processes and methods used by competitors in solving problems, i.e. developing a system of benchmarking best practices.

The prospects for the use of benchmarking by the enterprises implementing it are associated with borrowing the best work practices, developing the creative potential and motivation of employees, as well as more quickly overcoming the resistance of personnel to innovations.

The introduction of benchmarking allows you to improve planning, management and production at the enterprise and increase its competitiveness.

Types of benchmarking

Internal benchmarking - this type of benchmarking compares processes (products, services) within the organization. Close or similar processes (products, services) are selected as objects. With internal benchmarking, it is fairly easy to collect data, but comparisons are limited and results can be biased.

Competitive benchmarking - a comparison is made with direct competitors (by products or services provided) operating in the local, regional or international market. For this type of benchmarking, it is necessary to choose competitors located at a different “level” of the market. For example, an organization operating in a local market may choose to compare an organization operating in an international market. In this case, the data obtained from the comparison will be more reasonable and important, but they are quite difficult to obtain.

Functional benchmarking - comparing the processes of one's own organization with similar processes of another organization, but working in a different field of activity. With this kind of benchmarking, you can get objective and important data with less effort, using ethical and legal methods of obtaining information.

Generalized benchmarking - for this type of benchmarking, organizations are selected that have the best processes and approaches in their segment. Such organizations openly publish information about activities (examples are publications on the Toyota Production System, or Motorola's 6-Sigma system). From these processes and approaches, the most suitable ones are selected for study and comparison. Then they adapt to the conditions of their own organization.

Various sources are used as sources of information for choosing a benchmark for benchmarking. For example, publications on commercial activities, databases of consulting and audit companies on organizations that apply best practices (for example, GMP), lists of winners of quality awards, etc.

To improve performance, one or more types of benchmarking are used. The objects of benchmarking and the focus of research may be different, but the main stages for all types of benchmarking will be the same. This sequence of actions has developed as a result of the practice of applying benchmarking by many organizations.

The main stages of benchmarking include:

1. Definition, analysis and specification of the benchmarking object. The entity can be a process, service, or product of an organization. At this stage, it is important to understand how much resources and effort the organization is willing to spend on the benchmarking process - whether it will be a one-time event or benchmarking will become a permanent practice of the organization.
2. Identification and definition of characteristics for which benchmarking will be carried out. These may be important consumer properties of a product or service, or process quality parameters.
3. Formation of the benchmarking team. It is better to include specialists from various departments of the organization in the team in order to be able to more widely and objectively evaluate the capabilities of both their processes (products, services) and the processes (products, services) of benchmarking partners.
4. Selection of benchmarking partners. Leading organizations that have achieved success in implementing the characteristics of interest (identified in step 2) can act as partners. A partner can be one organization or several. If internal benchmarking is performed, then such partners will be related departments, processes or products provided by the organization itself.
5. Collection and analysis of information necessary for comparison. To make comparisons, it may be necessary to present the information received in the same form as it is presented within the organization. For example, if product specifications are compared, then different manufacturers these features may vary. Characteristics will need to be brought to a single "base".
6. Conducting an assessment of the organization's ability to achieve the required characteristics in comparison with a benchmarking partner (or partners). The assessment can be carried out by various methods that allow you to assess the existing “gap” between the work of your own organization and the work of a benchmarking partner (for example, using GAP - analysis).
7. Identification of possible changes to existing work practices. A "vision" of the future state of the organization is created. This vision should be based on the results of adapting the processes of the benchmarking partner to the conditions of their organization.
8. Development of strategic goals and plans for their implementation to achieve the desired level of performance. Depending on the scale of the changes, the plans may affect the change in processes, management systems, organizational systems, work performance culture, and other aspects.
9. Implementation of the planned changes and constant monitoring of the progress of transformations in the organization. If necessary, adjustments to the plans are made.
10. After achieving the set goals and implementing plans, a decision is made to repeat the cycle and implement all stages of benchmarking for new conditions.

Before using benchmarking as a performance improvement tool, an organization must decide how much resources it can allocate to it. It is better to conduct benchmarking using well-established methods. The benchmarking technique can save a lot of time and resources. If a decision is made to use benchmarking as one of the tools for continuous improvement, then it can be separated into a separate process.

Benchmarking business processes

As a rule, to formalize the structure of a business process, it is necessary to carry out its initial description, for example, in the ARIS tool system, and only then proceed to their further comparison. At the same time, in addition to best practices, it is possible to collect existing business process issues, which allows you to create a set of urgent measures for the operational optimization of the business process.

Another subject area that can be analyzed in a business process benchmarking project is operational risks, since their management is a necessary condition for organizing a high-quality business process. In addition to the above, when benchmarking a business process, it is important to analyze its environment - performers, documents, information systems, technological resources, etc. In practice, when organizing a project, it should be taken into account that the more information on the process is collected, the better the comparison will be, while it is most interesting to look not at the regulations and descriptions of business processes, but at their indicators and results.

By fixing all the differences found in the previously created business process structure, several tasks can be solved at once: collect information for benchmarking business processes; provide typification of business processes and replication of best practices; diagnostics and operational adjustment of the business process. If we consider a typical benchmarking project, then it has the following structure: choosing a benchmarking object, collecting information, analyzing information and adapting, improving business processes. One of the main stages of this project is the selection of the benchmarking object.

To do this, you must perform the following steps:

Determining the goals of benchmarking - at this stage, the main goals of the project are formed. For example, ensuring the dissemination of best practices within the company, typing business processes, or improving a particular business process.
Definition of benchmarking objects - at this stage, objects for comparison are determined. As a rule, indicators, business processes, personnel, knowledge, etc. become such objects.
Definition of benchmarking tools - depending on the goals and objects of benchmarking, the necessary tools are determined. In practice, when conducting internal benchmarking, questionnaires are most often used with subsequent clarification of information.
Selection of companies for benchmarking - at the selection stage, those companies or divisions that will be suppliers of information for benchmarking are determined.
Identification of information sources - at this stage, a list of information sources is formed and fixed. In practice, the sources of information for conducting a business process benchmarking project can be internal regulations, management reporting, description of business processes, etc.
Determining the structure of business processes to fix the differences - at this stage, the structure necessary for the accumulation of the found differences in the analyzed business processes is formed, which is done through the description existing business process.
Determining the forms of collection of materials - within the framework of this stage, the various ways collection of information, as well as questionnaires and reporting forms. In most cases, everything is limited to the study of documentation, questionnaires and interviews.

The next key stage of the business process benchmarking project is the information gathering stage:

Preliminary survey - the meaning of the stage lies in the preliminary distribution of questionnaires to collect information. At the same time, the questionnaires should contain the structure of the business process, which is selected as the object of benchmarking.
Clarification of the data obtained - work to clarify the data obtained during the survey is carried out during a series of interviews, and it is at this stage that the basic information on the organization of business processes is recorded.
Identification and fixation of strong deviations - this stage is the main one in terms of benchmarking, since by identifying and fixing strong deviations, you can find those differences that make a significant difference in the efficiency of the business process.
Definition of "best practice" - at this stage, of all the differences found in the organization of business processes, it is necessary to determine what will become the "best practice" for further implementation.

After the best practices in business processes have been identified, we can talk about moving to the next stage of the benchmarking project - information analysis and adaptation:

Determination of ways to achieve the "best experience" - at this stage, the analysis of the possibility of transferring the "best experience" to other business processes is carried out, because it is not enough to find the "best experience", you must also understand how to replicate it.
Determination of directions for improving business processes - these works allow you to determine the changes that must occur with the business process in order for the found best practices to work.
Determination of the method and extent of application of the selected best practices in the enterprise - in fact, at this stage, the design of the business process "as it should be" for a particular organization takes place. Those. created new process, which contains all the best that was found as part of the benchmarking project.

However, it is not enough to create a new business process, you need to implement it into activities, which happens at the next stage of the project - improving business processes:

Development of a plan for improving business processes - at this stage, planning is carried out for the transition from the existing business process "as is" to a new vision of the business process - "as it should be".
Improvement of business processes (introduction of changes) - change management technology is used to introduce changes into existing processes. Each required change is fixed, the person responsible for its implementation is determined, after which the implementation of the changes and their success are monitored.
Evaluation and analysis of the effectiveness of improvement is the final stage of the project, which determines how much the implemented “best practices” have made the business process better. To do this, an analysis of actual indicators is carried out, and already on the basis of the results of the analysis, a decision is made on the success of the project for benchmarking business processes.

Application of benchmarking

Benchmarking or reference comparison - a term that has already become quite firmly established in the Russian economic lexicon - is a management method (tool) that can help many Russian companies in solving the problem of improving management systems and increasing competitiveness.

The name of the method comes from the English words "bench" (level, height) and "mark" (mark). This phrase is interpreted in different ways: "reference mark", "height mark", "reference comparison", etc.

Benchmarking is a continuous search for new ideas and subsequent use in practice. The essence of benchmarking is, firstly, comparing your performance with that of competitors and the best organizations. Secondly, in studying and applying the successful experience of others in their own organization.

From industrial espionage to competitive analysis, benchmarking became an effective management tool in the late 1970s and has become one of the most popular management techniques in recent years.

Benchmarking, like most other management tools, is a product big business and for big business. Large companies, in search of competitive advantages, direct their efforts to the development of new management methods. These studies are global in nature, and the most successful solutions become separate areas in management, they are provided with a theoretical methodological base, they take their own place in the arsenal of business solutions. There are enough examples of this: 6-sigma (Motorola), Taguchi methods and Just in Time (Toyota), Poké-yoka (Matsushita), and again Benchmarking (Xerox).

In this situation, the manager of any of the millions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world has the right to ask the question: "do these methods apply to my business?". Can small companies really benefit from new approaches to management? Frequently cited examples of benchmarking describe the experience large corporations, such as Xerox, Toyota, Ford, Yamaha, etc. It is fair to assume that the approaches of large companies will also not be acceptable for small and medium-sized businesses. Indeed, improving the quality of a business through the introduction of modern management methods - total quality management, a balanced scorecard, a system for deploying plans from the Hoshin Kanri company and others, is accompanied for small enterprises by the question of the applicability of solutions used by large firms. Although, it should be emphasized that "... small firms are no less interested in building and developing quality systems than large companies, with the only difference that standard and widespread approaches do not always work in small businesses."

Small and medium enterprises play an important role in the economy of any country. Russia is no exception in this sense, and support for small businesses is being elevated today to the rank of state policy. Despite this, most management theories are still rooted first in large companies. How justified is the secondary role left to small businesses in the development of modern management systems, should small companies learn from the examples of large ones, or is research needed to reveal the potential of small businesses as a source of new trends in management. The possibility of forming our own approaches, including for reference comparison, in our opinion, exists. Benchmarking, in particular, with certain reservations, can be considered as a product of small and medium-sized companies, which arose from the need to learn from large firms and elevated to the rank of a management method. The tradition of transposing the experience of large companies to their own management systems was noticed by small organizations in Japan long before benchmarking was recognized as an official management tool.

Obviously, the analysis of benchmarking opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses should be carried out through the prism of the characteristics of enterprises representing this market sector.

The success of benchmarking depends to a large extent on determining what is to be compared. Small businesses always have a lot of problems, and managers have a desire to improve everything at once. The effect of this approach is usually zero. Next, we will consider indicators that are used by small companies practicing benchmarking as an object of measurement and comparison.

Research by E. Monkhouse revealed a tendency to use benchmark comparison of financial indicators in the field of small and medium-sized businesses.

A study of small companies by experts from the University of Sheffield six years later showed that both strategic and process benchmarking have found their way into small and medium-sized businesses. The figures of this study reflect the table.

Indicators used for benchmarking in small and medium-sized enterprises:

The data in the table is not surprising - small firms mainly use for comparison indicators that reflect problems that lie "on the surface" and have established approaches to measurement, such as financial condition, quality. More flexible and less tangible metrics, such as team spirit or organizational stress levels, are less commonly used, as it is difficult to determine the final object of comparison and normalize information.

In our opinion, the use of easily measurable indicators by small companies in benchmarking is dictated by the dynamic competitive environment in which small and medium-sized enterprises find themselves. Therefore, indicators that correlate with key success factors in the competitive struggle are more often the object for reference comparison than others. Research data from the University of Sheffield shows the main positions in which small and medium-sized companies compete (table).

Competitive Comparison Indicators (Key Success Factors) for SMEs:

These studies confirm the dominance of standard indicators for benchmarking in SMEs. Paying attention to less tangible indicators is a matter of time and the development of a culture of improvement. Today, small companies, especially in Russia, do not have balanced systems for collecting, evaluating, implementing and analyzing successful business solutions for measuring and benchmarking indicators that do not have strict definition methods.

How often do small companies actually use benchmarking? Coopers and Librand's research covers 1,000 companies, of which 67 percent report some form of benchmarking. According to research by the University of Sheffield, 63 percent of SMEs in Europe are involved in the benchmarking process, while 37 percent of respondents have never used such a method. According to the leaders of these companies, benchmarking is a waste of time and resources, in the words of one of the managers, "... benchmarking was invented by consultants for consultants." The position of the majority of Russian entrepreneurs today can be expressed in the same words.

However, paradoxically, small companies have much more potential for competitive benchmarking than is commonly thought. Theoretically, they always have before their eyes a lot of examples (landmarks) to which one should strive. In practice, the methods used by leading companies are either not available or unknown. In addition, the use of benchmarking in small companies is hindered by a number of other factors or barriers.

In addition to the standard reasons for not benchmarking: "lack of time and money", some of the barriers for SMEs look significant, especially against the backdrop of large companies.

First, small companies, due to limited resources, do not seek to attract outside specialists and use the services of consulting firms when there is a substitute in the form of various manuals and books about successful business decisions.

Secondly, fewer and fewer specialists from large companies with knowledge and experience in applying modern management methods are moving to work in small firms.

Third, membership in any of the recent benchmarking "clubs" is quite expensive for small companies. Thus, membership in the European Foundation for Quality Management for a small company will be from 1.350 euros per year.

Fourth, small business managers are, by definition, much closer to their customers, employees, and competitors than their corporate counterparts. Often their attention is scattered between strategic and operational information. As an advantage here, one can note the ability to constantly "keep abreast" in relation to the indicators of daily activities, from which managers in large companies are relatively removed. On the other hand, such a position of managers of small companies does not always allow one to have an objective idea of ​​the organization's activities in the strategic plan. However, here we can cite research data by E. Monkhouse, who notes that about 75 percent of the leaders of small companies clearly understand the strategic prospects of their business, and 65 percent also see the prospects of their competitors.

Fifth, in order to achieve desired effect From benchmarking, the indicators measured should be flexible enough to reflect the diverse characteristics of small businesses.

Most of the barriers to benchmarking noted above are non-financial. There may be an opinion that these barriers are indirect and relate to management problems.

In Russia, it has developed so that not everyone is ready to give information about their enterprise. In addition, the existing systems of taxation and financial accounting of the company do not always allow obtaining real data on certain indicators.

However, the main, and at the moment, the only reason for not using the potential of benchmarking as an effective management tool in small and medium-sized enterprises is a poor understanding or ignorance of the benchmarking method.

In Russia, the leaders of small and medium-sized businesses, entering into informal relationships with partners or competitors, often use the best achievements of each other in their company. As experience shows, direct communication with colleagues provides the most valuable ideas and knowledge for business, which, as a rule, leads to the introduction of new forms of management, software products, the use of new technologies in production.

In addition, the potential for development and the key to the success of the company in the interest of managers. No wonder leadership is one of the basic principles of the philosophy of modern entrepreneurship, which plays a key role in building total quality management systems in ISO 9000 standards, in improvement models based on quality awards and in almost all modern management methods. The important role of the leader in small companies is emphasized by the closer relationship between managers and employees than in large companies. This can serve as an advantage for SMEs, as it greatly simplifies the task of managers to convey to staff what benchmarking is, why and how it is necessary to benchmark.

Benchmarking, as a new and large-scale management initiative, should be started directly by the leader. However, most of them have a misconception about benchmarking, whether it is used to compare companies' products and services or numbers, or to understand processes. However, there is also an understanding that benchmarking allows for small means to make radical changes based on comparison with other companies: competitors or leaders. Leadership support is critical, as they must dedicate time, allocate funds, motivate, remove obstacles, and reward efforts.

Finally, it is important for management and benchmarking teams to remember that a formal benchmarking study usually takes about six months. There is no shorter way. "The biggest problem is finding the time to research. If you need a quick change, choose a better way," says Martin Leaper, director of quality for a small US company, Seites Corp.

Thus, we can draw the following conclusions regarding the features of the use of benchmarking as a management tool in small and medium-sized enterprises:

1. Benchmarking in developed countries is used by more than half of the companies representing small and medium-sized businesses. An even greater number of organizations consider benchmarking to be an effective tool for increasing competitiveness and improving the management system.
2. The potential of benchmarking in small and medium-sized businesses can be effectively realized by using the advantages of small companies: proximity to the consumer, a stronger leadership role and organizational flexibility.
3. The "complex of secrecy" is still the main barrier for small and medium-sized companies when conducting benchmarking, in addition to the traditional barrier of "limited resources". In this regard, comparative benchmarking of financial indicators or simple competitive analysis is more popular among small business managers.
4. The choice of financial indicators as an object of comparison is dictated by the intense competitive environment in the small and medium sectors of the market. Another feature of small companies is a closer connection with the consumer, in contrast to large businesses, which determines the choice of benchmarking indicators that reflect the key success factors of the organization: customer satisfaction and the price of the product / service. Analysis Methods

Back | |