Do you know the existing types of benchmarking? Benchmarking can be defined as a method by which companies compare their products, services, and processes in order to improve and become more competitive in the market.
This is a practice that is gaining increasing popularity in Brazil due to the benefits it provides for organizations. After all, what company doesn’t want to become better and more competitive, right?
Businesses that adopt this strategy are one step ahead of their competitors because they stay tuned in to the most modern market practices and, thus, manage to win clients and achieve greater efficiency. Discover below the different types of benchmarking that a company can adopt!
Competitive benchmarking
This first modality is the most challenging to practice, but it provides great benefits. Through it, your company compares its own management methods with those of competitors with the objective of improving and keeping up to date with market practices.
This benchmarking model must always be adopted within appropriate ethical standards. One difficulty in practicing it is the fact that every company is keen to keep its competitive practices confidential, as they represent important differentials. Normally, companies use external consultancies or strategies like the “mystery shopper” to practice competitive benchmarking.
Cooperative benchmarking
Its result may be similar to that of competitive benchmarking, but it is obtained through cooperation between two organizations, which in this case are called benchmark partners. It is also worth noting that these partners are not necessarily competitors and may operate in different markets.
The great advantage is that, by cooperating with each other, there is plenty of freedom for processes to be detailed: companies can study the volume of business and strategies that led the partner to achieve notoriety and prestige in a certain area.
Internal benchmarking
When a company compares processes between its different units, it is adopting internal benchmarking. The idea is to seek improvement through the analysis of practices that are born within the organization itself and lead some branches or departments to achieve better results than others.
The great benefit of internal benchmarking is that it is relatively easy to apply and contributes to the standardization of the organization’s processes. In other words, it allows all units to operate in a similar manner.
Functional benchmarking
In the functional modality of benchmarking, an organization studies a specific function of other companies regardless of their area of operation, such as product delivery or customer service. Thus, the company is able to learn the best strategies from companies in other markets.
This analysis opens up a wide range of possibilities. Using functional benchmarking, it is possible for a company to identify and adopt IT trends, for example. This undoubtedly guarantees a great competitive advantage!
Generic benchmarking
This modality has similarities to the previous one, but while functional benchmarking focuses on a specific company function, generic benchmarking is — as the name suggests — broader.
Just like functional benchmarking, it also consists of comparison with other companies, regardless of their area of operation, but it focuses on the analysis of the various processes that can be compared to those of the interested company, and therefore, it is one of the most adopted modalities today.
Whatever the modality, the types of benchmarking can provide very valuable information for your company, as long as it is a continuous process and not a sporadic practice. The goal is not to copy third-party processes, but to broaden your horizons and thus enable your company to develop increasingly better and more competitive practices.
You don’t have to choose just one strategy: several types of benchmarking can be practiced simultaneously and with the support of technological solutions. The important thing is to recognize that this is a practice that requires discipline and persistence, without ever leaving aside ethics and respect for competitors.
Have you ever had any experience with benchmarking? Share it with us in the comments!
