Obstacles to Successful Benchmarking

Like most human endeavors, benchmarking can fail. Failure in any activity usually means that the participant failed to prepare adequately for the venture—failed to learn enough about the requirements, the rules, and the pitfalls. So it can be with benchmarking. In this section, some of the common obstacles to successful benchmarking as drawn from the ex­periences of dozens of companies are explained.

1. Internal Focus

For benchmarking to produce the desired results, you have to know that someone out there has a far better process. If a company is internally focused (as many are), it may not even be aware that its process is 80% less efficient than the best-in­class. An internal focus limits vision. Is another firm better? Which is it? Such organizations don’t even ask the question. This is complacency—and it can destroy a company.

2. Benchmarking Objective Too Broad

An overly broad benchmarking objective such as “Improve the bottom-line performance” can guarantee failure. This may well be the reason for benchmarking, but the team will need something more specific and oriented not to the what but to the how. A team could struggle with the bottom line forever without knowing with certainty that it achieved suc­cess or failure. The team needs a narrower target: for example, “Refine or replace the invoicing process to reduce errors by 50%.” That gives team members something they can go after.

3. Unrealistic Timetables

Benchmarking is an involved process that cannot be com­pressed into a few weeks. Consider four to six months the shortest schedule for an experienced team, with six to eight months the norm. Trying to do it in less time than that will force the team to cut corners, which can lead to failure. If you want to take advantage of benchmarking, be patient. On the other hand, any project that goes on for more than a year should be assessed; the team is probably floundering.

4. Poor Team Composition

When a process is benchmarked, those who own the process, the people who use it day in and day out, must be involved. These people may be production line operators or clerks. Management may be reluctant to take up valuable team slots with these personnel when the positions could otherwise be occupied by engineers or supervisors. Engineers and super­visors should certainly be involved but not to the exclusion of process owners. The process owners are the ones who know the most about how the process really operates, and they will be the ones who can most readily detect the often subtle dif­ferences between your process and that of the benchmarking partner. Teams should usually be six to eight people, so be sure the first members assigned are the operators. There will still be room for engineers and supervisors.

5. Settling for “OK-in-Class”

Too often organizations choose benchmarking partners who are not best-in-class, for one of three reasons:

  • The best-in-class is not interested in participating.
  • Research identified the wrong partner.
  • The benchmarking company got lazy and picked a handy partner.

Organizations get involved in benchmarking when they de­cide that one or more of their processes is much inferior to the best-in-class. The intention is to examine that best-in­class process and adapt it to local needs, quickly bringing your organization up to world-class standards in that pro­cess area. It makes no sense to link with a partner whose pro­cess is just good. It may be better than yours, but if adopted, it still leaves your organization far below best-in-class. For the same amount of effort, an organization could have made it to the top. Organizations should identify the best and go for it. Only if the absolute best will not participate can taking second-best be justified. Second-best should be used only if it is significantly superior to the process in question.

6. Improper Emphasis

A frequent cause of failure in benchmarking is that teams get bogged down in collecting endless data and put too much emphasis on the numbers. Both data collection and the actual numbers are important, of course, but the most important issue is the process itself. Take enough data to understand your partner’s process on paper, and analyze the numbers sufficiently to be certain that your results can be significantly improved by implementing the new process. Unless the team has been deeply involved in the process, the practical knowledge to successfully adapt and implement it back home may be lacking. Keep the emphasis on the pro­cess, with data and numbers supporting that emphasis.

7. Insensitivity to Partners

Nothing will break up a benchmarking partnership quicker than insensitivity. Remember that a partner is doing your or­ganization a favor by giving access to its process. You are tak­ing valuable time from the partner’s key people, and at best, you are disrupting the routine of daily business. If you fail to observe protocol and common courtesy in all transactions, your organization runs the risk of being cut off.

8. Limited Top-Management Support

This issue keeps coming up because it is so critical to success at all stages of the benchmarking activity. Unwavering sup­port from the top is required to get benchmarking started, to carry it through the preparation phase, and finally to secure the promised gains.

Source: Goetsch David L., Davis Stanley B. (2016), Quality Management for organizational excellence introduction to total Quality, Pearson; 8th edition.

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