Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance of a company’s products, services, or processes against those of another business considered to be the best in the industry, aka “best in class.”

The point of benchmarking is to identify internal opportunities for improvement. By studying companies with superior performance, breaking down what makes such superior performance possible, and comparing those processes to how your business operates, you can implement changes that will yield significant improvements.

Benchmarking is a simple, but detailed, five-step process:

1. Choose a product, service, or internal department to benchmark
2. Determine which best-in-class companies you should benchmark against – which organizations you’ll compare your business to
3. Gather information on their internal performance, or metrics

Benchmarking will point out what changes will make the most difference, but it’s up to you to actually put them in place.