7 ways benchmarking has helped companies

By Van Fletcher

If your company is aspiring to become an industry leader and be the best in its sector, the first place to look is at your competitors. Where are they? How are they doing? That's where the Top 500 Best Managed Companies publication comes in -  providing you with invaluable competitor information so that you can benchmark your performance against your peers.

The reason why benchmarking is important is because it compares your company's people, products, and services with the competition. It takes the guesswork out of decision-making.

Furthermore, each market is different, especially in South Africa where we have our unique blend of cultures. “Don't get left behind” is a term often used in traditional marketing campaigns, and it’s very relevant when it comes to why you should benchmark your company. 

In the Banking sector, the Big 5 banks consistently look at each other and are constantly evolving, either through technology, efficiency, fees, customer retention, partnerships, and customer acquisition. But more to the point: Profit.

“The only constant is change” - Fiona Wakelin, Editor of Top 500

Here are the seven ways benchmarking can help your company better:

1. Identifying Best Practices
   By looking at the top companies and industry best practices, you can study their successes in order to improve and drive your company’s efficiency, quality and performance.  Some examples of best practice include: having a documented process or way of doing something in a business; presenting company goals and rewarding employees; ensuring you have a customer satisfaction department that helps retain happy customers; staff training.
   
   
2. Improving Processes
   Take a look at how your processes differ from the top organisations, for efficiency and time wastage. If you are finding that a part of your business has bottlenecks, streamlined workflows  and processes will result in improved profits and reduced costs.  
   
   
3. Performance Metrics (KPI)
   Through benchmarking your company against your competitors, you will be able to implement meaningful, impactful Key Performance Indicators (KPI)  which will help set the key goals for your business. By setting the goals, you will be able to measure your company’s progress against your targets. An example here could be that your competitor retains its clients year on year, and you would set a KPI on rebooking repeat customers.
   
   
4. Innovation
   By studying what your competitors -  and the industry in general - are doing, you will get some inspiration. Sometimes it's refreshing to see how different approaches to the same task get success. Industries and technologies are constantly evolving, and so should your products and services. When it comes to innovation, looking overseas to America and Europe as well as countries like Australia, we often find fresh ideas that help shape our products and services.
   
   
5. Customer Satisfaction
   A happy customer is a repeat customer. Benchmarking customer satisfaction versus your competitors helps gauge how well you are doing in terms of customer satisfaction. In turn this information will help you tweak your service, process, product, delivery and experience.
   
   
6. Employee Engagement
   Happy employees are 12% more productive than unhappy staff, and they sure make life easier. Benchmarking isn't just about process, there is the human element of making staff happy - what are your competitors doing differently to make their staff happy, engaged and motivated?
   
   
7. Strategic Planning
   Analysing what type of planning is done by competitors in terms of setting goals, and how they strategise on attaining them is a great way to help set your goals. Where this will come in useful is when markets change, and you need to be ahead of the curve.
   

It's important to note that successful benchmarking requires careful consideration of the context and goals of your company. Here are a few tips to ensure effective benchmarking:

• Select Appropriate Metrics: Choose metrics that are relevant to your company's goals and operations. Comparing apples to oranges won't provide meaningful insights.

• Choose Relevant Companies: Look for companies that are similar in size, industry, and business model. Comparing against wildly different organisations might not yield useful insights.

• Be Open to Change: Benchmarking might uncover areas where your company needs to change its practices. Be open to making necessary adjustments for improvement.

• Combine Internal and External Insights: Don't rely solely on external data. Incorporate internal data and feedback from employees and customers to get a comprehensive view.

• Regularly Review and Update: Industries evolve, and what's considered best practice can change over time. Regularly review and update your benchmarking efforts to stay current.

• Incorporating benchmarking as a regular practice in your company's continuous improvement efforts can contribute to its growth, competitiveness, and long-term success.

What the readers say:

"I have used the Top500 printed edition for at least the past 4 years. It contains specific information that we find extremely valuable.  Great job! Thanks Topco." - Gerrit Cloete

To find out more please contact Emlyn Dunn at emlyn.dunn@topco.co.za or book a meeting below: