If you are to create a benchmarking report or study, whether to present it internally or externally, there are some steps you should consider and follow to mimic the best practices of this methodology.

Project Steps

Your project team should closely define the project scope and intent to define specific areas to cover in each study. Each study will normally contain these major activities:

• Detailed project definition;
• Survey formulation;
• Participant solicitation;
• Data gathering;
• Data tabulation and analysis;
• Site visits;
• Project meetings/Status updates;
• Final report preparation
• Final report meeting

Benchmarking databases

If your final goal is to create Benchmarking databases to support a decision, you should take the following steps:

• Organizing taxonomies of business processes used for analytic purposes
• Creating study maps and guides to structure benchmarking efforts
• Developing industry standard databases of performance measures
• Gathering company responses to specific measures into databases
• Administering databases process owners categorized by industry and process interest
• Leading individual companies in benchmarking efforts by
• Defining high payoff areas for research topics
• Conducting short surveys (typically 2-4 weeks) and long benchmarking efforts (typically 4-5 months)
• Facilitating project teams
• Attracting top companies to join efforts
• Measuring performance
• Performing Gap analysis
• Leading site visits to best practice companies
• Compiling results and making recommendations for action
• Providing implementation services