Benchmarking

Basic types of benchmark.

Competitive or Industry/sector benchmarking enables an organization to compare its performance with competitors trading in the same industry or sector.

Best-in-class benchmarking is similar to industry or sector benchmarking. However managers would compare their organization to the market or sector leader i.e. the best-in-class.

Internal or historical benchmarking is the internal procedure for comparing results from past performance to current or forecasted performance.

Functional or external benchmarking involves comparing your business activities with those of companies from other industries/sectors with similar processes.

Collaborative benchmarking involves two phases; firstly between two voluntary collaborators within a sector, then secondly between the two collaborators and a party outside the current sphere of competition. Of course this is better suited to the public sector e.g. hospitals, police services since commercial rivals are unlikely to collaborate in this manner.

For more info on Bechmarking got to http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_benchmarking.html

the info above is taken from the above site