Best Practices are an increasingly popular approach to organizational improvement by bringing learning into a company from external sources. To be effective, however, any attempt to implement best practices must include two steps: identification and qualification. Identifying best practices can be done through a benchmarking process or through some type of shared learning process with other companies. The qualification process involves determining whether or not a practice that proved effective in other organizations will be as effective in your organization. The qualification process is essential since organizations can vary in many subtle but critical ways.

Benchmarking is the search for the "best practices" that will lead to superior performance within a given industry. This process requires observing best practices and projecting what your performance can and should be in the future. Benchmarking allows you to develop operating objectives and design work processes to meet the standards set by companies who are your best competitors or renowned leaders in their industry.

Stratos, LLC can provide your organization with the expertise, training, and coaching to implement a benchmarking process to fit your specific needs and objectives.

Our approach allows individuals and teams responsible for benchmarking to develop and implement a customized benchmarking process while they are learning the necessary knowledge, skills, and techniques. User-friendly tools and job aids are provided so individuals can accomplish meaningful work during training. This integrated approach ensures that the training is linked directly to the business objectives of the organization and generates the support necessary to be successful. Our approach provides your people with “just-enough” knowledge and “just-in-time” skills to achieve their objectives.

Teams and individuals are taught to plan, analyze, integrate information, and take action using the following benchmarking process:

• Identify organizations with ”best practices”
• Select data collection methods
• Determine current competitive gap
• Project future performance levels
• Establish operational goals
• Develop action plans
• Implement specific actions
• Monitor results and report progress
• Recalibrate the benchmarks

The ideal audience for this training event is a team, group, or task force responsible for installing a benchmarking process within an organization. Upon completion of this activity, teams and individuals will have learned...

• The difference between Benchmarking Competitive Analysis and Market Analysis.
• How to select the appropriate processes to benchmark so only major improvement opportunities are targeted.
• How to document a work process so it can be easily benchmarked.
• How to select the right companies to benchmark.
• Where and how to collect data.
• How to conduct a Competitive Gap Analysis.
• How to publish and communicate the findings.
• How to integrate the results into the business plan.
• How to turn results of benchmarking studies into actions.