Business Analysis Toolkit

The world of business is moving at such a fast pace that you really have to keep yourself abreast constantly. One wrong move and you just might end up a couple of steps behind your competitors, and these couple of steps are just about enough to break the existence of your enterprise altogether. This is precisely why you need to prepare a scorecard comprised of benchmarking metrics to have a good grip of the industry yourself. Metrics benchmarking is indeed the key to success here.

Imagine the business environment like that of riding a plane. If your plane comes without a dashboard, gauges, and all the knobs and controls, then it would be like flying a plane that has no course to follow whatsoever. It would be like flying blindly. Getting the plane off the airport is just about the only successful thing that is done here. Reaching the destination is a completely different story. With that analogy, your benchmarking scorecard would then act as your dashboard, gauges, knobs, and controls. Having a measurement tool handling execution, it would be easier for your business plans to materialize. What then should you know about competitive benchmarking metrics?

Execution measurement pertains to the use of both internal and external sides of competitive benchmarking. To do this, the cascading technique is utilized when setting goals and executing them. Having such a scorecard would then allow you to see all achievements in the real setting itself, and not just how you would view achievements in the yearly business reviews you see everywhere.

For this measurement system to be motivational, you need to make sure the data measured would be accurate and timely. Measurement validity can be based on how simple they are, and the problems tackled should be traceable back to their root causes. Your entire database comprised of all collected results should be maintained in a simple manner – this is needed so that integrity can be maintained as well.

Competitive benchmarking is indeed a key element when it comes to management advances. Though this may be a bit vague at the moment, the best way to describe competitive benchmarking is to look at it from a wider perspective. Competitive benchmarking is actually measuring a business’s solutions, services, and practices against the most difficult competitor possible in the arena. Do not stick with just one competitor; go for the long haul, if you must. There will always be other companies that find themselves at a better position in the corporate ladder than your own company. Measure your own business against these and you will have a better grasp at competitive benchmarking.

There are five very important things you have to keep in mind when you are preparing your own scorecard laden with benchmarking metrics. The first important thing is for you to have the proper mindset. Secondly, make sure to define the key luck factors of your company very well – quality, cost, and speed. Thirdly, determine your company’s stretch goals, especially the ones that are connected to your company’s key luck factors. Fourthly, make sure to implement training and coaching programs so that it would be easier for your team to achieve excellence. Lastly, make sure to praise and celebrate any achievement worth celebrating. Keep all these in mind when developing your metrics benchmarking scorecard and you will surely be on the right path.

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