“Competitive benchmarking and collaborative benchmarking are excellent methods to improve business processes and increase efficiency.”

“Social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter influence business processes around the world. They are especially useful for developing new ways of collaborative benchmarking. "

Short review

Benchmarking is the process of comparing its activities with the best companies in the market and in the industry, with the subsequent implementation of changes to achieve and maintain competitiveness. Benchmarking is joint or competitive. Various forms of social media are beginning to influence many business processes. In this sense, benchmarking is no exception.

Our expert report examines the essence of benchmarking and provides an explanation of its basic concepts and implementation process. Various benchmarking methods are presented and the goals and advantages of each of them are explained. It has been shown that social media fundamentally changes the way benchmarking is conducted. They increase the effectiveness of benchmarking and facilitate its implementation. Social media is transforming the benchmarking process, transforming it from project-oriented to continuous.

Using Nokia as an example, we give a practical idea of \u200b\u200busing social media for benchmarking.

Introduction

Benchmarking began to be used as a business practice in the 1980s and was gradually adopted by companies around the world. In a recent study, benchmarking was first recognized as the most popular management tool (see Rigby & Bilodeau, 2009). In part, this practice is a response to the recent economic downturn, which has attracted the attention of companies to the issue of improving the efficiency of business processes and product competitiveness. The skillful use of benchmarking allows you to solve both of these problems.

Over the years, as companies develop their own benchmarking methods and business analysts publish its theoretical foundations, the understanding of what a benchmark is and how it is best done has undergone certain changes. In general terms, benchmarking is a systematic method for identifying the highest standards of products, services and processes by comparing such products, services and processes in different companies. Moreover, the most important part of benchmarking is to use the information received as a guide to action or, in other words, to introduce changes and improve the situation in order to achieve the highest standards that are usually called best practices.

Today, social media is changing the way benchmarks are conducted. They provide companies with new communication tools. Thanks to this, the need for business trips to carry out field work is reduced, since a significant part of these tasks can now be solved online. As a result, benchmarking becomes less costly. And this in turn allows companies to lower the threshold for benchmarking with each other and turns benchmarking from a one-time event into a continuous iterative process.

Benchmarking History

The systematic use of benchmarking in practice began in the 1980s. The pioneer in this area is often called the company Xerox. Faced with a foreign competitor that showed better performance in many ways, Xerox executives decided to find out the sources of such a competitive advantage in order to copy or even surpass them. The task was divided into separate parts to find the answer to the following questions:

1. Which company is the best in terms of products, services and processes?
2. How did this company succeed?

The task at hand was simply to find the very best and learn from their experience. Today, these two issues continue to be the basis of benchmarking.

In subsequent years, other companies began to use similar working methods, expanded the scope of benchmarking and finalized its methodology. Expanding the circle of questions studied meant that they began to look for advanced working methods not only among competitors, but also in other companies in their own or even in another industry. Recently, changes have mainly affected the search for answers to the second of the main benchmarking questions above. However, observing and describing the activities and working methods of the best competitors is not all. A separate, in its own way, complex problem is the implementation of changes in the organization.

Benchmarking did not stand aside from other trends of that time in the field of management. In the 1980s, the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) was developed, which gained immense popularity over the next decade. The principles underlying benchmarking are perfectly consistent with the concept of TQM, and some experts even consider benchmarking as a tool necessary to achieve TQM. In any case, it is the focus on high quality throughout the organization, its business processes, services and products that underlies both the TQM concept and benchmarking. TQM and benchmarking are part of the corporate culture of continuous improvement, employee involvement in the company and customer focus.

In general, the key ideas of benchmarking are as follows:

1. Identify best-in-class organizations
2. Obtaining the necessary information using appropriate methods of collecting information for self-assessment
3. Work on self-improvement through the implementation of changes aimed at achieving and exceeding the established standards

In this report, we will present various benchmarking methods and explain the purpose and advantages of each of them. Finally, we will share our experience and knowledge gained over many years during the implementation of numerous projects in the field of benchmarking.

What is benchmarking compared

The benchmarking method is not limited only to business processes or products. In fact, over the years, companies have shown great ingenuity in choosing the business elements considered in benchmarking.

At the same time, it is important not to forget that for successful benchmarking it is necessary to identify the main reasons for high efficiency. If you start by collecting general information about what other companies are doing, then the ultimate goal is to identify how they work. The term "implementation tool" in benchmarking indicates the main factors that allow achieving high efficiency in a company, for example, in the field of production, business processes or resource use.

Products & Services

One of the common and natural starting points is a full orientation to the products manufactured by the company and benchmarking of products, services or the entire offer of a competitor. 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 make a benchmark comparison with competitors' proposals, since the effectiveness of services is not so easy to measure, as is the case with tangible products. Therefore, successful benchmarking of services often requires a large number of interviews and field studies.

Financial performance

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

Business processes

Benchmarking is often aimed at business processes due to the structure and effectiveness of this method. Business processes are of great importance because they reflect the capabilities of the company and are thus very close to the fundamental tools for implementing competitiveness. It often turns out that two companies had access to the same resources and customer base, however, one of them organized their business processes more efficiently and ensured higher quality with lower costs.

However, gathering information about competitor processes is not an easy task and may require significant initial research. When benchmarking business processes, competitors are an obvious, but not the only option for benchmarking. Often, good results can be obtained through the use of sources of information throughout the value chain of a competitor, including suppliers and distributors. In addition, benchmarking results for companies from other industries can be valuable information.

Strategies

Effective strategic decisions require knowledge of competitors' strategies. However, as with processes, analyzing strategies is not easy. A significant amount of information about the company's strategy can be obtained from open sources, however, 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 initial research and analysis of a company’s strategy using abductive reasoning.

Functions, Groups, and Organizations

Benchmarking is designed to identify not only what other companies do, 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 when conducting benchmarking. We can talk about any aspect of the organization of the company: the approved functions or created groups, divisions and business units, the number of employees working in them, etc. Part of the organization’s benchmarking can even be drawing up characteristics for individuals.

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

Benchmarking Concepts

Given the wide scope of benchmarking, it is useful to further understand the methods of its implementation and highlight the various types and sub-disciplines that make up the benchmark comparison. It is generally accepted to define benchmarking as a process of comparing your organization with the best companies in the market or industry and the subsequent implementation of changes in order to achieve and maintain competitiveness. This approach emphasizes the presence of two separate steps in benchmarking. If at the first stage the work is mainly aimed at obtaining information, then the second is related to the implementation of changes and therefore is no less important.

Training on the example of other companies is considered authentic only if it leads to increased efficiency. It should be noted that it is the second stage that usually underlies the decision to conduct benchmarking. Although in theory the process of gathering information and comparison precedes change management, in reality the company that launched the benchmarking has already decided to change and develop a corporate culture of continuous improvement. Therefore, benchmarking is simply a manifestation of an initiative to accelerate business processes, increase their quality and efficiency.

Another significant aspect of benchmarking is its gradual transformation into a continuous process. Although benchmarking is carried out in the form of individual projects, these projects follow each other, providing the company with a continuous process of training and self-improvement. This phenomenon only accelerated with the advent of social media, which significantly reduced the costs and time for each benchmarking cycle.

Benchmarking partners

Companies that an organization chooses to compare with are often referred to as benchmarking partners. Organizations can compare themselves with a wide range of companies. Although a typical group of such companies is made up of competitors, it is often no less useful to consider organizations from another industry or other companies operating within a single value chain. Moreover, the most important thing is that benchmarking partners are very effective or the most effective in their activities.

Since conducting a benchmark comparison with competitors involves solving many issues, for example, searching for sources of information, as well as legal and ethical considerations, in the most general sense, benchmarking is usually divided into two different areas: competitive and joint benchmarking.

Competitive benchmarking

Competitive benchmarking involves comparing your organization with competitors and usually requires covert independent research or competitive intelligence and, accordingly, analysis of relative competitive and strategic positioning. Benchmarking competing products can also be seen as competitive benchmarking. As a rule, it turns out to be less difficult, and is largely carried out on the basis of publicly available information.

Joint benchmarking

An additional benchmarking classification takes into account areas of benchmarking and benchmarking partners. In the literature on benchmarking the following generally accepted classification is often given (for a more detailed analysis see, for example, Anand - Kotali, 2008).

Internal benchmarking

It involves benchmarking your own business units and branches, which can be located in different places. It allows you to easily access information, including sensitive data, and also takes less time and resources than other types of benchmarking. It is one of the simplest forms of benchmarking because most companies introduce similar functions in their business units. The main task in this case is to determine the internal standards of organization effectiveness. This leads to an exchange of experience using best practices throughout the company. As a drawback, it should be noted that if you do not subsequently use the results as a base level for external benchmarking, companies that use this type of benchmarking often retain excessive focus on their internal business processes.

Competitive benchmarking

Competitive benchmarking is used to compare their company with direct competitors and compare relevant market positions. The goal is to compare companies operating in the same markets and offering competing products, services or workflows. The ease of obtaining information here can only be expected under certain conditions. Competitors can engage in competitive counterintelligence, thereby complicating the search for data on their activities. Competitive intelligence involves the use of a whole set of methods to obtain the necessary information.

Functional benchmarking (within the same industry)

General benchmarking (any industry)

General benchmarking aims to study the most efficient processes of any company. Although this type of benchmarking can be used to compare dissimilar organizations, it is necessary to identify comparable procedures and functions during its implementation. Sometimes this method can be difficult to implement, since general benchmarking requires a broad conceptual analysis of the entire process of benchmarking and a thorough understanding of procedures in other sectors of the economy.

General benchmarking is a special case because it is one of the few forms of benchmarking that is understandable and useful for best-in-class companies. A typical problem in benchmarking is the asymmetry of the companies being compared. If an organization that demonstrates low efficiency has something to learn from more efficient companies, then with whom to take the best enterprises in the industry? Generic benchmarking provides a solution to this problem, allowing companies to learn from examples from other industries and from a wider range of benchmarking partners.

Table 1. Other Useful Terms

Benchmarking gap	The difference between the performance indicators of the two companies. Also stands for the measurable leadership advantage of a best-in-class organization.
Best practice	The methods of work that provided the highest results. Best practices are the result of benchmarking and are ultimately accepted for use in the organization.
Common Interest Group	A community of people with common interests in a certain field and agreed to exchange experiences.
Customer protection	The role that is assigned to one of the members of the benchmarking team. This person protects the interests of the client and draws the attention of the group to issues that may cause customer concern.
Implementation tool	Business processes and working methods that facilitate the implementation of best practices and help to engage key success factors. Implementation tools explain the reasons for performance indicators identified during benchmarking.
Conversion	Radical reorganization of business processes, organizational structures, management systems and organization values \u200b\u200bin order to maximize the efficiency of the company.

Benchmarking process

The following is an explanation of the traditional benchmarking process. As noted earlier, today many companies see benchmarking as an ongoing process. However, in practice, benchmarking, as a rule, is still carried out in the form of individual projects. Therefore, the following explanations reveal the workflow of the benchmarking process during the execution of one such project. In general terms, this project model can be considered as one iteration, carried out as part of a series of iterations.

1. Identify a field or topic (based on strategy)
2. Benchmarking group selection (with the simultaneous participation of supporters and skeptics, a combination of various experts in the field of the subject of study and, possibly, external support)
3. Identification of already known information and gaps in available knowledge
4. Benchmarking type selection (joint or competitive, etc.)
5. Search and selection of benchmarking partners (companies)
6. Preparation of action plans to fill in the missing information (research methods, joint site visits, secondary research, competitive intelligence, etc.)
7. Search for knowledge and exchange of information with partners (focus on best practices)
8. Analysis of the results and preparation of recommendations for changes
9. Management of implementation of recommendations and changes
10. Progress monitoring

Figure 1. Benchmarking process

The first four steps of the process are considered the planning stage. They are associated with identifying a research area, such as benchmarking and benchmarking partners. The analysis stage involves performing on-site work in order to find suitable companies and collect information about them. Since this process is general in nature, work at this stage can be performed both in the framework of joint and competitive benchmarking. Before making decisions about changes or improvements, it is necessary to analyze the information received.

Although in the description of the process these actions are presented in one step, it is obvious that the implementation of changes in the organization is associated with tremendous work and involves many of its own processes. In the current context, it is assumed that recommendations received during the benchmarking process are transmitted for use in the implementation or change management process. This ensures that new information is used as a guide to action.

Social Media and Benchmarking

Social media is beginning to penetrate more and more into existing business processes. In this sense, benchmarking is no exception. Due to their inherent characteristics, it can even be argued that social media will have a significant impact on benchmarking. Here are some of the benefits associated with this.

• Joint benchmarking is, in fact, a social activity, and social media provides many new and effective ways for social interaction.
• Social media paves the way for new additional sources of information and data collection channels.
• Benchmarking is becoming more and more focused on business processes, and social media supports this type of continuous engagement, different from working on individual projects.

When considering the diagram of the benchmarking process presented in the previous chapter, it becomes clear that the new tools provided by social media make it possible to more efficiently initiate and solve problems arising during this process. The time required to iterate the benchmarking process is reduced, and benchmarking is more likely to be a continuous activity, rather than a one-time event.

Social media primarily foster collaborative benchmarking, which relies on proactive communication between benchmarking partners. Social media allows partners to almost completely interact through the Internet and eliminate the need for employees to travel on business trips for personal meetings. Given that this was one of the most expensive and time-consuming parts of the benchmarking process, social media, in fact, has a significant positive effect on the performance of benchmarking.

There are many publicly available tools that can be used to facilitate teamwork as part of the benchmarking process.

• The LinkedIn network (www.linkedin.com) is a widely used professional networking service that also provides tools for teamwork and collaboration.
• twitter (

The main stages of benchmarking include:

1. Definition, analysis and detailing of the benchmarking object. As an object can be selected processes, services or products of the 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 constant practice of the organization.

2. Identification and determination of the characteristics by which benchmarking will be conducted. These may be important consumer properties of a product or service, or process quality parameters.

3. Formation of a benchmarking team. It is better to include specialists from various departments of the organization in the team so that there is an opportunity to more broadly and objectively assess the capabilities of both their processes (products, services) and the processes (products, services) of benchmarking partners.

4. The choice of benchmarking partners. Partners can be leading organizations that have achieved success in implementing the characteristics of interest (identified in stage 2). 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 a comparison, it may be necessary to present the information received in the same form as it is presented internally. For example, if product specifications are compared, then different manufacturers may have a different set of characteristics. Characteristics will need to lead to a single "base".

6. Assessment of the organization’s ability to achieve the necessary characteristics in comparison with the benchmarking partner (or partners). Evaluation 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. It creates a “vision” of the future state of the organization. This vision should be based on the results of adapting the benchmarking partner processes 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 magnitude of the changes, plans may affect changes in processes, management systems, organizational systems, work culture, and other aspects.

9. Implementation of planned changes and constant monitoring of the course of transformations in the organization. If necessary, adjustments are made to the plans.

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 applying benchmarking as a tool to improve activities, an organization must decide how much resources it can allocate to it. Benchmarking is best done using well-established methods. Benchmarking techniques can significantly save time and resources. If a decision is made to use benchmarking as one of the tools for continuous improvement, then it can be allocated into a separate process.

The transition of Russia to the new management system, of course, has affected all aspects of the social, socio-economic and cultural life of the population, especially business. The bulk of the leaders of Soviet enterprises knew about competition only in general terms from textbooks, questions of increasing production efficiency were never raised at all (except for increasing labor productivity for fulfilling plans), and, as expected, only bourgeois countries could think of increasing profits. The low interest in the business 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 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 organization tactics, the search and formation of an optimal, but mobile product, price, sales policy, as well as strategic planning of 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 one or another subject of the marketing system in market conditions, taking into account the state of internal and external environments, are ensured. Marketing activities are based on marketing research, as they are used to develop a strategy and program of marketing activities, the use of which will help to increase the productivity of the company and maximize the satisfaction of the needs of the consumer or client. The results of marketing research are most important for management, as well as making entrepreneurial and marketing decisions, to eliminate or reduce the uncertainty of the external and internal conditions of behavior of the subjects of the marketing system. Avoiding risk is almost impossible, but it is possible to predict, prevent or mitigate adverse effects in advance. A minimum of uncertainty - that’s what you should strive for, because it’s not in vain that they say: “Alerted - means armed” In order 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 course of marketing activities. Thus, for the effective construction of the organization’s work, it is not enough for the management or company to have information only about the internal characteristics of the state of the company and production and economic activity, this approach is irrelevant and will not pass the test of time. Successful modern businessmen prefer continuous strategic planning of the entire 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 rather difficult to analyze and draw conclusions, it became necessary to separate the functions of different departments and services and form a specialized service for organizing marketing activities, the competence of which 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 proved that the classical definition of marketing, which implies the well-known components: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, is far from exhaustive and not at all sufficient, since it does not reflect the interconnectedness of the interaction processes of all market system entities. 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 has recently begun 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 by some established criterion (for example, a mark on the index that prohibits children taller than her from going to the attraction). We can say that a benchmark is something that has a certain quantity and quality that can be used as a standard or standard when comparing with other objects. Benchmarking is most often a systematic activity aimed at searching, evaluating ways to solve problems, learning from the most suitable examples, and this is never tied to size, area of \u200b\u200bbusiness, or geographical location. Benchmarking- this is the art of finding or identifying what others do best, followed by study, improvement and application of other people's working methods. 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, imitation of doing business or technology). Indeed, if you want to, you’ll think about it, because entrepreneurs and organizations have always been spied on, 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 work and productivity, not so much of competing enterprises (of course, of them 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 enterprise management, which reduced their own effectiveness. The developed concepts and methods allowed to reduce costs, increase profits and optimize the dynamics of the structure and determine the strategy of the organization.

Benchmarkingin 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 United States was the birthplace of this term. Of course, not in its modern form, but benchmarking has been used before. In Japan, benchmarking is close in meaning to the Japanese word dantotsu, meaning "effort, anxiety, concern for the best (leader) to become even better (leader)." In China, when talking about benchmarking, they often recall the rule of Chinese general Song Tzu: “When you know your enemy and know yourself, you are not afraid of the result of hundreds of wars.” At the present stage, the use of benchmarking due to the main principle “from better to better” leads to the life, success of many companies in the USA, Japan, Western Europe. Benchmarking was first used in 1972 at the initiative of the Cambridge Institute for Strategic Planning (USA). The research and consulting organization PIMS, which studied the degree of influence of marketing strategies on profit, found that in order to develop effective behavior in a competitive environment, you need to know the experience of the best enterprises that have succeeded in similar conditions.

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

The Performance and Quality Center (Bectinghouse) sees benchmarking as a continuous process of detailed research of best practices that contribute to the rapid improvement of competitiveness.

For most organizations, benchmarking as such is not an innovation, since it is most often carried out as part of a competitive analysis, but benchmarking is more effective because it presents a more detailed, formalized and streamlined technique compared to a competitive analysis method or approach. Benchmarking today- A necessary component of the success of any organization.

You can use benchmarking in a variety of ways. In logistics, for example, benchmarking facilitates the rapid, low-cost identification and prevention of problematic situations in logistics systems related to areas close to the customer, to order fulfillment and transportation.

Benchmarking clearly reflects the place in which the company or the market may have problems associated with costs or quality, and also shows the organization's place among competitors. He finds and identifies problems in the course of work, specifying them.

Many experts in economics and marketing are convinced that benchmarking should be an ongoing process in the company. In the framework of benchmarking, entrepreneurial functions are considered from the point of view of improving processes aimed at creating a product or service, promoting them on the market. The use of benchmarking as a component implies the development of a strategy, boundaries and framework of managerial functions, but the consumer remains the main source of information about products, the market and competitors.

Many companies that use benchmarking are convinced that it contributes to the reliable provision of competitiveness, as well as the creation of prerequisites for continuous monitoring of the company's performance level in the context of internationalization of the procurement of raw materials.

Benchmarking experience is also used to determine an enterprise’s success strategy. Close attention is directed to the following questions: who? as? why? (Which company climbed to the top of the competition? Why didn’t your own organization become the best in your field? What can be changed and what needs to be kept at the enterprise so that it becomes the best? How to implement the appropriate strategy to move forward?).

When using the benchmarking company, employees are divided into teams consisting of representatives of different services and departments. The most important areas of activity for employees and the company as a whole are value-oriented planning, as well as literacy, sociability, competence in the field of customer service, technology and entrepreneurial culture. Some people believe that benchmarking is a type of activity that is directly related to customers, technology and culture of entrepreneurship, as well as in connection 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 represents the adoption of management methods from other, successfully existing companies and entrepreneurs in order to determine, identify weaknesses in their organization by comparing with other areas of entrepreneurial activity or competitors.

Benchmarking application consists of a simplified version of four sequential actions:

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, because the secret of their success, always achieved by hard work, both physical and intellectual, to bring you "on a silver platter" nobody will agree. Most often, if you do not take into account proprietary technologies, this is a big trade secret, which is carefully guarded from competitors. But it is always possible to analyze the dynamics of specific economic indicators, track the sales scheme, formal organization, and otherwise;

3) comparison of the results of their processes with the results of the analyzed firms. Here it is necessary to connect 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, attracting specialists or retraining its employees, mastering new technologies, introducing modern management and decision-making techniques. Thus, we can distinguish types of benchmarking.Here are just a few:

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

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

3) general - comparison of a company with indirect competitors for certain indicators of interest;

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

Benchmarking is never a one-time analysis. In order to have a return, increase 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.

Benchmarking is popular in Japan; it has been used there for a long time. Japanese firms have chosen the most suitable form for themselves - product benchmarking, which is now widespread. Commodity benchmarking is based on a psychology called “I, too,” which in some way can be considered a development of the Sun Tzu rule. Benchmarking of functions and processes is less popular.

If we consider benchmarking as training based on comparison, then it is based on two levels: 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 benchmarking can give, it should be remembered that the fact of the profitability of the exchange of experience and its analysis has never been challenged by anyone. However, "do not scratch everyone under one comb," because, although many enterprises and types of activities 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 substantiated and proven.

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

To date, a huge number of interpretations of the concept of benchmarking has accumulated. Some believe that it is a product of the consistent development of the concept of competitiveness, others say that benchmarking is a mobile algorithm for improving quality, while others consider it to be exotic new products as a result of Japanese business practice. However, all agree or more or less agree with the definition that benchmarking is the process of finding, identifying and studying the best known methods of managing and conducting business.

1.2. Benchmarking development and development

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

Benchmarking has been keeping up with us ever since “that person from the hut opposite things went much better than all of us.” Novelty and interest in this term was made by business consultants, whom many firms of all shapes and sizes invite in order to teach them how to ensure that the organization’s income does not lag behind the income of such companies. Benchmarking in the view that it has now was not always, 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 XIX century, the American engineer Frederick Taylor (Frederick Taylor) investigated the scientific methods of labor organization, which formed the basis of the concept of benchmarking.

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

1) 1950-1970s. - characterized by tight control by the management of “Task Management” (Management by Objectives);

2) 1970-1980s. - the period of evaluating and comparing values, it is typical to draw up “graphs of values” - (“dogs”, “money cows”, “niches” and “rising stars”) (The Value Chart);

3) 1980-1990s. - the influence of competitors is growing, it is competition that serves as a catalyst for the desire for improvement, transformation, innovation, “Beat The Competition”;

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

The most recent changes in management philosophy reflect an increase in interest in competition and its analysis. This is due to objective reasons, primarily the variation in 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 than supply, so the main tasks of management were only to determine and establish parameters, final criteria and control the processes of their achievement. However, subsequently, many countries faced crises of overproduction, from the 1990s. the supply significantly exceeded demand, therefore, management, meeting the requirements of the present and the prevailing conditions, switched to how to quickly and correctly get ahead of the competitor in production and marketing processes.

As follows from the definition of benchmarking, its goal is to find the most effective entrepreneurial activity. After determining the best way to manage and conduct business, you need to answer the question: "How to do it better?" At this stage, you can use all the tools at hand, experience, imagination, use the services of specialists, as well as mobilize the work of your own departments and services (planning, marketing, etc.).

The pioneer of the targeted use of benchmarking was Rank Xerox, which at that time was in a dire crisis. This company conducted a study of the costs and quality of its 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 consulting areas. He is becoming more popular and earning himself more and more popularity. Even government agencies, hospitals and universities are beginning to understand and adopt the benefits of benchmarking in order to use its foundations to improve their processes and systems, although in Russia this is more common for private organizations.

In Europe, this process is not fast, but stable, the popularity of benchmarking remains very moderate. Significant differences in understanding business processes in different countries inhibit its implementation in business processes of various sectors of the economy.

The basis of benchmarkingthe idea of \u200b\u200bcomparative activity is being put forward not only in relation to competing enterprises, but also to advanced companies of other industries. In fact, benchmarking is an alternative method of strategic planning, where the tasks are determined not from the achieved, but from the analyzed indicators of competitors. Benchmarking technology allows you to combine all the components of a strategy development system, industry analysis processes and competitor experience analysis. To better understand benchmarking methods, you need to determine its relationship with strategic planning.

In order to rationally choose the directions of activity, the size of the necessary resource base, to create relationships between the directions of its activities, the organization must clearly represent the strategic features of its industry. Therefore, industry analysis is the initial step in developing a strategy. It involves the study of the degree and characteristics of competition, customer behavior patterns, 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 material for fairly accurate forecasting of potential profit on average for the industry, and also reveals the reasons for the difference between some firms in comparison with others.

It is necessary to start the 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 that determines success in this area? The market is divided into areas (niches) by the most profitable sectors, then success factors are determined (sales system, exclusive packaging, new technical characteristics, low price, etc.). Next, their influence on profitability as a whole and individually is determined.

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

It is important to find out how the competitor distributes the available resources, in other words, what he has by the time he enters the market (product, price, sales 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 their own competitive advantages, it is necessary to choose a "role 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 are collected, analyzed and classified, the possibility of achieving the goal and the factors affecting the result are evaluated. The next stage is the development of a plan whose goal is to achieve the highest efficiency of the processes being changed.

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

According to published data by the well-known consulting company Bain & Co, over the past two years, benchmarking has entered the top three most common methods of business management, but this is typical for large international corporations. Its popularity is based on the fact that it helps to modernize business processes rather quickly and at a lower cost. It reflects and details the work of leading companies and contributes to achieving the same, and possibly even higher results.

Reasons for the growing popularity of benchmarkingin the modern world are as follows:

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

2) reward for quality. Recently, actions and competitions held at the national and international levels, competitions, reviews and tenders to determine and reward quality leaders have been gaining widespread acceptance and response from the public. The conditions for participation in such events require, in addition to demonstration by the participating companies of the competitive advantages of their products, the mandatory use of the benchmarking concept in the course of the usual, systematic management of the company;

3) the need to comply with modern rapidly changing conditions, to adapt to them, as well as the introduction of world achievements in the field of production and business technologies. In order not to be surrounded by their competitors, all companies (the size and scope of activity do not matter at the same time) should regularly study the situation in other companies 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 senior managers enter into everyday life after hours in informal relationships with colleagues or competitors, and then take notes and embody each other's best achievements in their companies. The experience of many organizations, as well as the studies conducted, prove that direct communication with colleagues leads to the most valuable novelties for a particular business: ideas and knowledge, which very often leads to the successful, quick and easy implementation of new management methods and forms, more efficient distribution and use resources, etc. But such a model "passes" only in those organizations where the leadership is ready for this. Interested managers - 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 learn and learn from colleagues.

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

1) organizations professing the principle of secrecy of their activities, carefully hiding absolutely all information about their company;

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

The exchange of experience is a thing known to Russian enterprises since the days of the USSR, it is not new, only now it is customary to call it benchmarking in a Western manner. The implementation of benchmarking for any Russian company is usually difficult, due to objective reasons (such as old technologies and equipment, a lack of young specialists, low economic indicators) - you have to re-educate people, sometimes just explain in detail and clearly why all this is necessary. However, the process, if desired, is adjusted quite quickly and clearly. In some way, all services of the organization are engaged in the collection, processing and implementation of new experience.

At the initial stage in the organization concerned, each unit collects its profile information. Very often, the sources are open reports from Western and Russian companies, a special industry press, and the Internet is an integral part of modernity. 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 collected 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 by which of them the organization is ahead or behind its competitors. After that, tactics for improving indicators 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 a domestic plant studied management, and later on, competitors also took advantage of it, so it’s useful to “look around.”

In the West, where benchmarking has long been popular, the following practice has been established: a company, actively adopting other people's experience, will certainly share its own. Most successful enterprises publish detailed reports on their performance 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 (such as: increasing the number of inspections by competent authorities, attracting the attention of tax and other services, and many others).

Naturally, companies that do not disclose everything related to trade secrets or strategies, as well as important know-how, 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 in return in the form of valuable information. On this occasion, many experts agree that it is better both firms go ahead than both remain in place.

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

However, most executives remain “on their own,” believing that openness is unjustified. This is where the problem mentioned above just makes itself felt: most Russian companies are not ready for competition, still work on old technologies and do not trust modern “things”, just in case, covering all the information. Most often, such leaders 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 matter.

Speaking about Western enterprises, one cannot fail to note the experience of the Czech auto giant Skoda, which before all others solved such crucial 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 on their own, 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 happens and vice versa - the technologies developed at or for a Russian company are spreading faster in other foreign firms than in domestic ones. However, in adopting experience, anyone has their “pitfalls”. For example, the world-famous company Xerox has always applied the principle of direct sales, and in Europe it worked perfectly, the system never failed and in all conditions paid off, but in countries with a large territory it is almost impossible to cover the entire market in this way. In 1999, the Russian office of Xerox became a pioneer - a branch of the company that launched a two-tier distribution system. After that, the marketing director of Xerox claimed that the office turnover doubled. Xerox company continued to successfully develop, develop markets, and already in Moscow, employees of Xerox branches from India, Latin America, Egypt and other countries with a significant territory or specific state of transport, natural and climatic conditions came to adopt new sales management experience.

Ideal for benchmarking- first-hand information, since the possibilities of its poor quality, falsification, etc. are practically excluded. Russia, however, is experiencing problems in this area. Companies refuse to share experience, information and technology even with companies operating in another industry. In fact, in Russia, although this is not very noticeable against the general background, there are a significant number of firms, organizations that successfully work, make profit and are constantly developing, with a lot 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.

1.3. Types of Benchmarking

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

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

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

Heyday third generation benchmarkingfalls on the period 1982-1986, when leading companies in product quality recognize and begin to use the opportunity to learn (more simply, quickly and cheaply) from enterprises belonging to other sectors or industries, given that competitor studies are less effective .

Fourth generation benchmarking- strategic benchmarking, which took 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. The basis of such processes is the study of successful strategies of other enterprises or partners.

Fifth generation- global benchmarking. It began to develop relatively recently. He gained many allies against the backdrop of the integration of developing countries into the world economy, the desire of most states for an open economy, a joint fight 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 a tool for organizing international exchanges in the future, taking into account the peculiarities of cultural and national processes of organizing production.

To the most common types of benchmarking include the following:

1) internal benchmarking - benchmarking, performed 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, capabilities and alternatives to adjust or change the production process or administrative methods of managing competing enterprises;

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

4) process benchmarking - involves the work of changing certain indicators so that they can be compared with firms whose characteristics are ahead of the given enterprise in similar processes;

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

6) general benchmarking - benchmarking of a process that compares a specific function of two or more organizations regardless of sector; Less often they talk about the allocation of such narrower types as cost benchmarking, benchmarking characteristics, client 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.

Benchmarking development directly depends on how enterprises understand quality. Usually emit several stages in changing the understanding and attitude of enterprises to quality.

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

In this situation, without radical changes, partial use of product benchmarking is possible, while comparing our products with competitors' products. However, a significant problem that the organization will encounter will be a lack of information that impedes the full use of competitors' experience and knowledge.

The second stage is based on strengthening control. The organization implements the ISO 9000 quality standard. Benchmarking is used in all key business matters. 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 components of overall quality. The basis of their activities, firms put customer satisfaction as the key to their success in business. Gradually changing understanding of the actual satisfaction of the consumer and solving related problems.

A characteristic feature of the next stage is the emergence of partnerships, alliances and cooperation between organizations and within them. 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 various divisions in a large company. Each department has its own goals, objectives, functions, problems. Often there are contradictions and difficulties in intercompany relationships. All this leads to a number of negative consequences: a decrease in manageability and, as a result, overall efficiency. Cooperation and partnership within the organization give impetus to a more efficient information exchange between its constituent parts.

Similar processes take place at the intercompany level. In this case, the concept of "competition" replenished with another component - the 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. A synergistic effect appears within the organization.

Only after that strategic benchmarking becomes global.

1.4. Milestones of the benchmarking process

One cannot but pay attention to such benchmarking components as its principles, objects of research, basic analysis rules and stages of the benchmarking process, and one should not forget about the main sources of information and the control system in benchmarking.

Success factors affecting 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 budget constraints.

Soft (subjective) factors- a climate conducive to cooperation; peppy, 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 management and problem solving; compliance with the ethics of entrepreneurship (analysis of excellence should not turn into industrial espionage).

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

Excellence analysis examines the internal functions, business principles and experience of enterprises for:

1) determining the best results;

2) analysis of the work of their organization;

3) identify 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 maintain its place for a long time surrounded by many worthy opponents and with increased competition, the company’s divisions themselves must constantly be in a competitive environment so that there is an incentive to increase labor productivity. This will ensure the constant survival of the organization against the background of creating customer value, 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 your enterprise compared to competitors is quite simple and mobile, because it allows you to apply yourself to almost everything: from basic customers (such as goods turnover per employee) to customer satisfaction.

The analysis of excellence, widely used in benchmarking, is primarily aimed at increasing the operational and strategic productivity of the organization as a whole, and ultimately leads to an orientation of the entrepreneurial culture towards such useful settings as the ability and desire to learn from staff, constantly increasing potential and achievements superiors and leading cadres, which, in principle, serves as an impetus for the development process.

The 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, to some extent reduce costs, increase the degree of customer satisfaction with their products, and in general there is an increase in efficiency, identification with the subsequent elimination of weaknesses in the processes of organizing activities, the development of new plans, directions, ideas, improving organizational structure.

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

If we talk about strategic issues, then attention must first be given to factors that particularly affect the realization of competitive advantages. In practice, measurement criteria that most fully describe these factors are usually determined, then companies with the best results in this area are identified. After that, find those methods that lead to the best results.

From an analytical point of view there are three most important types of analysis:

1) an internal analysis of excellence involves a comparison of indicators within the organization itself (between departments, branches or product groups);

2) an external analysis of excellence draws attention to similar activities in various fields (activities of competitors in various markets);

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

Having a little understanding of the essence of benchmarking, you need to pay attention to benchmarking guidelines:

1) reciprocity. Benchmarking is an activity that is impossible without relying on mutual relations, consent and data exchange, which provides a “winning” base for the parties involved. It should be borne in mind that reciprocity does not at all oblige full, blind trust (after all, competitors). At the very beginning, the limits of the range of information, the form of data exchange, the nature of the study are always agreed upon. In benchmarking cooperation, each partner must be confident in the behavior of others, only then can a good result be achieved by everyone. Everything should be pre-established and agreed upon, not cause other interpretations;

2) analogy. Partner processes should be similar. Any process can be investigated to 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 selection parameters of benchmarking partners significantly affect the success of the activity;

3) measurement. Benchmarking in some ways is a comparison of the characteristics investigated, measured, analyzed in several other organizations; the purpose of such processes is to establish the causes of existing differences in performance indicators, as well as ways to improve them. 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 carried out on the basis of evidence, accurate analysis and study of the process. Intuition is also a good feeling, but justification is still more important.

Benchmarking process accepted divided into six phases.

1. Identification of the object of analysis of excellence. In this phase, those moments of the organization’s work are established that can and should be investigated using production analysis. This makes it possible to critically treat your company (both as a whole and its individual components) and to soberly assess the situation that has developed. Moreover, it is necessary to decide whether to analyze superiority from an internal or external point of view (for example, from the standpoint of customer perception).

As a rule, this tool most often finds application in the analysis of goods, monitoring indicators of sales, factors of customer orientation, etc. There are practically no restrictions on the use, except for objectively following the needs of the buyer and the requirements of the organization itself.

2. Identification of excellence analysis partners. Having justified the goals, one should actively seek the best enterprises. Potential partners should not only be first-class on their own, but also suitable for the simplest comparability with their own company. This process involves the following steps:

1) a cursory review (from English to skim - “to read fluently, run through the eyes”). A superficial review of available sources of information is supposed, as well as already obtained data are compiled and structured;

2) tidying up (from English to trim - “to finish, grind, tidy up”). It is supposed to search and take into account further information, the information available to this moment is described and analyzed in detail;

3) the choice of the best (from English to cream - “skim cream”). Suitable partners are identified at this stage of the process.

As sources of information are most often used:

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

2) specialized magazines, books, databases;

3) the state list of enterprises;

4) personal business relations 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) attracting new specialists;

9) marketing clubs;

10) participation in supervisory boards.

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

Information collection is usually still solves such subtasks as:

1) definition and explanation (concept of questionnaires);

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

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

4) the use of additional sources;

5) structuring and documenting information;

6) multistage, but not time-delayed verification of available information.

4. Analysis of information. This stage requires a significantly developed creative and analytical ability of participants to study the processes of analysis of excellence. To analyze in this case means not only to find similarities and differences, but also to determine cause-effect relationships.

In addition, we must try to reduce the impact of factors that can reduce the quality, complicate the comparison and distort the results. Here by virtue the following scheme comes in:

1) streamlining and comparing the information received;

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

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

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

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

Thus, benchmarking does not encourage copying or stealing new products and achievements of the best companies, but is an incentive for all processes. The positive, successful experience of other companies should be an incentive for further progressive innovative development of their own company and its organizational structure. The identified potential, the use of which can lead to significant improvement, must necessarily be realized through well-grounded planned concrete measures. 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, targeted innovative implementation that occurs after long deliberation on the consequences of the analysis of excellence leads to:

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

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

3) developing a plan for implementing the necessary changes;

4) the implementation of the new plan.

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

6. Process control and repeat analysis. Monitoring the implementation of the analysis results should be carried out at each stage gradually and purposefully. It can be carried out in two planes:

1) tracking the development of the developed estimated performance indicators of the organization;

2) continuous verification of the achievement of intermediate goals, compliance with the norms and terms set by the plan for resources and work.

Methods and processes are highly susceptible to the action of time, constant changes are provoked by objective and subjective reasons. What was a novelty or the best achievement a few years ago today is losing its importance, at best it is becoming a standard or even falls below that. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly check whether the best indicators found so far are relevant. Thus, analysis of excellence is not a one-time method. With its constant use, the costs of the analysis of excellence after its implementation significantly fall, and their payback is constantly growing. This effect is achieved due to the fact that you do not need to spend more time and money on staff training; employees have already become familiar with such a tool as superiority analysis; contacts and contacts are established with the companies being compared, they are easy to maintain through regular exchanges; access to important sources of information is open, a database is already functioning, which only needs to be updated.

The analysis of excellence is gaining more and more fans, including among executives, it draws the attention of people working in the same company to what lies at the heart of individual and collective success, and, consequently, leads to an increase in the efficiency of the entire enterprise. However, “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 seek, find and implement successful methods of action. Ultimately, this is precisely what is said in the analysis of excellence and in training through the analysis of excellence.

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

The analysis of excellence puts the interests and tasks of the enterprise at the center, which is very beneficial from the point of view of employers. This leads to a significant positive effect, occurring due to a decrease in the desire of individual workers to increase their qualifications as much as possible exclusively for their own purposes. This helps to some extent to cope with the classic problem of staff planning. The task of the head is to encourage employees to self-improvement, while introducing such methods of staff development that are more beneficial to the organization than individuals working in it.

The purpose of the learning process used in marketing is not to study lectures in a standard way. The creation of an atmosphere that rewards continuous recognition of the new is encouraged, leading to increased productivity and better results.

There is a correlation between the analysis of excellence and the advanced training of managers, as well as their retraining. In this case, you can identify six phases of training:

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

In most cases, employees and executives are afraid of change, are wary of them, or reject them in principle. This greatly inhibits the work of those departments of the organization, the results of which are not dependent on profits and losses, but affect the long term. Sometimes these units, as a result of their inaction, try to prove their importance by making adjustments (tightening the schedule) of the staff structure or by increasing the number of employees applying for salary, 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 at other enterprises. A reassessment of the activities of these business units should be carried out periodically. Positive changes in the 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.

Organizational managers should initiate such comparisons and encourage them to create and update the described entrepreneurial culture;

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

When an enterprise in its activity comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to be a “world-class master” in absolutely all areas, it becomes necessary to search for new knowledge, since an active search for innovations and new knowledge is not the norm in modern organizations.

The main thing in the analysis of excellence is that it helps to increase the susceptibility and openness to new knowledge, theories, methods and technologies from information sources of the external environment. This helps to increase employee motivation and overcome their fears to expose weaknesses. Thus, a situation is created in which new knowledge and ideas arise. The collection of information and the subsequent processing of data require a large amount of time, which often goes beyond the normal work schedule. Reading special literature and articles should become natural, not burdensome for employees, 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 conversion of information itself gives the right to interpretation to all members of this process. Processing data into knowledge the most important goal is to create a sort of array of sorted information, which is easy to extract if necessary. A specialist engaged in the analysis and processing of information arrays, at the same time draws conclusions under what conditions it is possible to use the information elements obtained to stimulate the processes of change and increase productivity;

4) consolidate new knowledge.

The bottom line is that, having once found out an easier way to produce, earn, increase economic indicators, a person will not refuse this, but, on the contrary, will want to somehow improve these processes. Therefore, an incentive function also begins to work. The acquired knowledge needs to be further accumulated and converted in accordance with the demand of the time into specific techniques, technologies and skills for their subsequent use;

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

Successful methods of action need to be fixed. The systematization and implementation of good ways of managing a long-established structure, as a rule, is very difficult, therefore they require special determination and additional costs from the management. The situation is complicated by the fact that such investments in one's own enterprise are a long-term form of capital investment, therefore, many fold or stop halfway;

6) train abilities: apply newly acquired knowledge.

The newly created organizational culture, although it requires huge costs (both financial and intellectual), is likely to last a long time and will be supported by the same employees who initially protested. After creating such an industrial climate where learning abilities are encouraged, we can assume that the investment is safe and has begun to pay off.

1.5. Relationship Benchmarking and Competitive Advantage

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, try to bypass the competitor, seeking more and more new means. Competition often goes beyond business ethics. The “legal” means was and remains the buildup of competitive advantages. Benchmarking is an indispensable tool that can significantly 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 \u200b\u200bresearch and only after that look for ways to solve it. You should not try to cover everything all at once, an ordinary enterprise does not have a huge supply of free financial resources, and therefore will not be able to get around even the closest competitor in all respects at once. The positive thing is that the work that has begun to stimulate or improve any competitive qualities will still bring about positive changes in any area, which in turn will give an impetus to action and strengthen faith in the implementation of progress and other successes.

Benchmarking (benchmarking) is a way of finding opportunities for improvement (improvement) by comparing their activities with those of the best or leading enterprises or divisions in their field. This is a continuous search for new ideas, their adaptation and use in practice.

Benchmarking is the process by which an organization learns and which is modeled on the process of human learning. ” In the process of learning, the ability to do things that I could not do before, to perceive the world and its connection with it in a new way, to develop creativity is acquired.

Over the past ten years, benchmarking has become one of the most effective and recognized methods for improving the business and is one of the most popular management tools. The reason for this popularity is easily explained - benchmarking helps to improve business processes relatively quickly and at lower cost. It allows you to understand how advanced companies work and achieve the same, and possibly even higher, results.

There are several types of benchmarking:

1. Internal benchmarking - comparing a department with a department (sharing best practices).

2. Competitive benchmarking - comparing our capabilities with competitors.

3. Functional benchmarking is a comparison of yourself with the best company in our field of activity (which is not our competitor).

4. External benchmarking - comparing yourself with the best company, regardless of type of activity.

Internal benchmarking it is especially effective in large companies with a large number of branches, which, in fact, are engaged in the same work, but in different geographical locations.

Before you begin work on introducing the best practices of your colleagues (i.e., internal benchmarking), you should clearly define: what kind of experience, in what volume, from which unit to adopt. And also determine the indicators by which the results will be evaluated in the future. After all, it’s not at all a fact that the method that worked successfully in the Moscow branch will show the same brilliant results on the periphery.

Internal benchmarking is the first step that actively growing companies need to take.

That is, before starting to study competitors, it is better to look around in your own company, to identify the department or branch that works as efficiently as possible.

Then find out, due to which such a significant effect is achieved (possibly in a higher motivation of employees to achieve a corporate effect, etc.).

Competitive benchmarking , including engineering analysis and procurement of competitors, requires the organization to conduct a detailed analysis of the products produced by the competitor, as well as services and processes. The most common approach is to purchase products and services from a competitor and then analyze them to establish competitive advantages.

Initially, some organizations were not sure of the ethics of this process, but today only a few can compete without any idea of \u200b\u200bthe products and services of their competitors.

In practice, most car manufacturers dismantle the cars produced by competitors to the last screw and lay out their part after part in a row to compare their design and assembly methods. A detailed competitive benchmarking process also examines key information that is not directly related to the product. A thorough study of the packaging, current manuals, service instructions and delivery methods can provide a wealth of valuable information.

External industry benchmarking compares the unit for which benchmarking is carried out with similar units of the best world organizations within the general industrial category (examples: banking, insurance, healthcare, electronics). This type of benchmarking is used in cases where an organization can acquire something by comparing its units for which benchmarking is carried out with similar units of other organizations engaged in the same industry, but not direct competitors.

External cross-industry benchmarking . With external cross-industry benchmarking, the process extends beyond the boundaries of a specific organization and industry, covering other industries. Many business processes are interdisciplinary in their application and extend beyond the boundaries of individual industries (for example: relations with suppliers, provision of services, logistics, advertising, hiring personnel). Applying the benchmarking process to these systems can provide valuable insights, especially when information comes from non-directly related industries. Benchmarking in dissimilar industries allows you to work out innovative processes that are not currently used in the production of specific types of products manufactured by you; these innovative processes will enable you to achieve the highest efficiency.

A classic benchmarking example is comparing Xerox methods with similar L.L. Bean methods. For many, this example is a classic benchmarking, demonstrating its potential in the field of detection of best methods.
Xerox was looking for companies that, judging by their key features, have the same features or similar operations. In this case, the assembly process was studied during the execution of customer orders. The process was considered similar for two main reasons. Firstly, these processes had similar characteristics: the goods with which the companies dealt varied significantly in size, shape and conditions of circulation. Secondly, and most importantly, a comparison of the processes led to the conclusion that manual assembly was necessary. The process could not be automated, as previously assumed.
But the most striking discovery was the fact that Bean performed the sorting process three times faster than Xerox.

Another classic example of benchmarking at one time was demonstrated by the American airline Southwest Airlines. Its experts concluded: the only way to increase the number of flights is to reduce the time spent by aircraft on the ground. Is it realistic to achieve this if the company was already an industry champion in the speed of aircraft maintenance? But then one of the company’s employees remembered that the maximum service speeds of vehicles are demonstrated at motor races. After studying the team principles of the work of Formula 1 technicians and their adaptation to the standards of the aviation industry, aircraft maintenance time was reduced without breaking technical requirements from 45 to 15 minutes.

Other n benchmarking example

One bank has long had a queue problem in operating rooms and a low speed of service. Having studied the experience of successful retail banks, the bank decided to implement the following 4 initiatives.

1) Deliver multifunctional Cash-In ATMs at service points, thanks to which customers can independently carry out a large number of banking operations independently (without an operator), first of all, deposit money into the account and make utility bills.

2) Reduce the cost, or make free of charge (for certain Service Packages) the Internet Bank system, thanks to which customers can remotely (without visiting the bank’s office) a large number of banking operations.

3) Introduce a system of electronic queues, thanks to which the clutter of customers is reduced in operating rooms and each client can be calm and confident to be served on time.

4) To optimize and automate part of client business processes, for example, opening a deposit, drawing up documents for obtaining a loan, etc. Thanks to this, the client spends less time interacting with a bank employee.

Instead of a conclusion

The new business model, which came to the company along with benchmarking, contributes to the formation of systems thinking, which is often lacking for small firms. Benchmarking helps to understand both the internal system around which the company is built and the external system that affects it. Considered a powerful improvement tool, benchmarking is an effective way to study both yourself and your competitors: « If you know him and know yourself, fight at least a hundred times, there will be no danger"(Sun Tzu," Art of War» ).

Benchmarking can be considered as a process, activity on long-term thinking of entrepreneurship strategy, based on the best experience of partners and competitors at the industry, inter-industry, national and international levels.

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

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

The use of benchmarking is multidirectional. And although from the mid 70's. it was carried out within the framework, today benchmarking has successfully established itself as a way of evaluating work strategies and goals in comparison with leaders in their and related industries in order to guarantee a long-term market presence.

Benchmarking (eng. bench - place, marking - mark) is a way of studying the activities of business entities, especially 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 other people's experience and organize their use in your work.

Benchmarking is aimed at studying business. In relation to innovation, it means studying the business of other enterprises or entrepreneurs in order to identify the fundamental characteristics for the development of their innovation policy and specific types of innovation. When benchmarking, it is important to overcome the psychological complexity of managers and specialists.

Psychological complexity means:

• satisfaction of the head of the business entity with the results achieved:
• unwillingness to risk cash, i.e. spend money on the acquisition of information, pay for the advice of analysts and experts, save all types of resources and cash costs for marketing research, etc .;
• the fear of doing better than a competitor is very difficult or impossible due to the high costs of all resources, including money.

There are two types of benchmarking: general and functional.

General benchmarking is a comparison of the production and sales of products of this manufacturer with the business indicators of a sufficiently large number of producers or sellers of a similar product. Such a comparison allows us to outline clear areas of investment activity. The parameters used to compare product characteristics depend on the specific type of product.

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

For benchmarking, a special working group is usually created.

The functional benchmarking methodology consists of the following steps.

1. The choice of a specific function of the business of the manufacturer (seller).
2. Selection of comparison options for a given business function. In this case, one parameter or a group of parameters can be used. The only one, i.e. unambiguous, the comparison function of a business function can be, for example, the profitability of the operation, the level of costs of the operation, the duration in time of the active period of use of this function, the degree of risk, etc. The group of parameters 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 information received.
5. Development of a draft of changes made to this function.
6. Feasibility study of the proposed changes.
7. Implementation of changes in the practice of organizing this business.
8. Monitoring the progress of this business and the final assessment of the quality of changes in this function.

The effectiveness of the reception in question depends on the proper 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 competitor in the market, the use of former employees of these companies, etc.

Practice shows that the process of improvement is unlimited. Benchmarking is, you can say, the perpetual motion machine of the continuous process of continuous improvement of the company.

Benchmarking concept

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 realize 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 their competitors, all companies, regardless of size and sphere of activity, need to constantly study and apply international best practices in all areas of business activity, adopt all kinds of effective technologies.

Benchmarking - this is:

• methodology of comparative analysis of the performance of the company and its divisions and borrowing knowledge, achievements from other companies that are « bestofthebest» in his field:
• systematic activities aimed at searching, evaluating and studying with the best examples, regardless of their size, business sphere and geographical location;
• the art of discovering what others are doing better than us, and the study, improvement, and application of their working methods;
• process of systematic and continuous measurement: assessment of enterprise processes and their comparison with the processes of enterprises of leaders in the world, in order to obtain information useful for improving their own characteristics:
• a special type of activity for searching and obtaining information about the best solutions used in the activities of other companies. These companies can be competitors, although the most successful borrowing is most often obtained from those companies that operate in completely different industries, regions, markets, other countries, etc.

Before answering the question: “Which companies are the best?”, You need to answer two other questions, namely: “What needs improvement 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 our own activities with those of a competitor.

Benchmarking a three-step partner selection process called process STC. Its name comes from the initial letters of three English words - skim, trim, cream. First step - S - a quick overview (from « toskim» - read fluently, run through the eyes) when they make a general overview of available sources of information, and also collect additional available data. The second - T - tidying up (from « totrim»- to finish, grind, put in order), a detailed description of the information available at this time. The third stage is FROM- selection of the best (from « tocream» - “Skim the cream”), the selection of suitable partners. In the process STC competitive intelligence is used at all stages.

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

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 methods of work. The main issues of analysis are:

• how others do it;
• why they do it differently;
• what conditions allow them to do this better.

Benchmarking should be understood as a research process conducted in parallel with marketing 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 your own work.

Benchmarking is a comparative evaluation of the effectiveness of the tested and reference systems, the correct functioning of which is beyond doubt. A comparison of the performance of the two systems allows you to check the correct functioning of the system under test. The effectiveness, correctness and speed of the system when performing a specific task is determined. Benchmarking is, in fact, the development of the method of analogies, which, in turn, consists in the use of organizational forms and management mechanisms that have proven 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 should be marked, i.e. It is structured in such a way that it is possible to determine how successful the business process is and to plan the implementation of changes that can track the company's future achievements in the field of improving business processes.

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

Types of Benchmarking

Several types of benchmarking are currently known. each of which has its advantages and disadvantages.

Functional benchmarking - conducting comparisons with organizations. not related to the number of intra-industry competitors, but carrying out functional activities, the organization is interested in improving (for example, storage, transportation). Advantages of functional benchmarking: it is easy to identify functional leaders, there are no problems with confidentiality, there are ample opportunities to discover unique, effective approaches or technologies that may be useful for an organization. But the specificity of functional benchmarking makes it difficult, and sometimes simply impossible, to adapt the research results to the features of the organization that performs functional benchmarking.

Internal benchmarking - conducting comparisons between different departments of the organization. Internal benchmarking consists in comparing different services and divisions of one company with each other in order to find out the most effective working methods that make the product or service more competitive. The simplicity of organizing, conducting, collecting the information necessary for comparison determined the spread of this type of benchmarking.

General benchmarking - 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 opportunity for internal 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, benchmarking of costs is allocated, which is aimed at reducing costs, identifying factors affecting their formation, searching for differences in cost formation between companies and its other types.