Page 132 - DMGT524_TOTAL_QUALITY_MANAGEMENT

Unit 9: Benchmarking

Source of innovation. Notes
Measurable goals & objectives.
Understanding present performances in measurable terms.

Awareness about the best practices.
Accelerate positive change.
Achievement of standards of excellence.
Provides SWOT analysis of the company.

Generates employee involvement.
Improving organizations bottom line through cost-benefits analysis.
Improves quality of management through information exchange.
In 2008, a comprehensive survey on benchmarking was commissioned by the Global
Benchmarking Network, a network of benchmarking centers representing 22 countries. Over
450 organizations responded from over 40 countries. The results showed that:
1. Mission and Vision Statements and Customer (Client) Surveys are the most used (by 77%
of the organisations) of 20 improvement tools, followed by SWOT analysis (72%), and
Informal Benchmarking (68%). Performance Benchmarking was used by (49%) and Best
Practice Benchmarking by (39%).
2. The tools that are likely to increase in popularity the most over the next three years are
Performance Benchmarking, Informal Benchmarking, SWOT, and Best Practice
Benchmarking. Over 60% of organizations that are not currently using these tools indicated
they are likely to use them in the next three years.

Caselet Benchmarking: The Politics of Envy

et’s start with a controversial statement: ‘envy is a very good thing’. Sounds like a
good subject for a business school debate doesn’t it? How often have you looked
Lenviously or admiringly at the car someone’s driving, or the shoes they’re wearing,
or the ease with which they carry themselves? Some people might describe that envy as
negative, but if it results in you doing something in an improved way, isn’t that positive?

Gary Hamel said: “My fundamental belief is that if a company wants to see the future,
80 per cent of what it is going to have to learn will be from outside its own industry.”
I contend that the motivation for that learning is provided by a feeling of discontent with
where you are at present; and that feeling of discontent is something that has to be fostered
if complacency isn’t to set in.
The conclusions of research carried out by the London Business School on behalf of the CBI
in 1997 are as true today as they were then—in essence the research found that the more
complacent an organisation, the less effective it is in delivering service. It also found that
there is a direct positive correlation between an organisation’s service performance and
the amount of benchmarking it does. In other words, the more benchmarking you do the
better your performance!

Contd...

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