ESSAY ON BENCHMARKING

KATERIN PAOLA HERRERA CAUSIL

LAURA ALEJANDRA MARTINEZ CUELLO
AURA MARIA RAMOS TRIANA

TIVISAY GALVAN
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

UNIVERSITY OF CORDOBA
ADMINISTATION IN HEALTH
MONTELIBANO
2022
 BENCHMARKING
Currently, companies have to compete not only with companies from the same
region, but there is increasing competition with other companies from other
places and countries, due to the globalization that has been taking place. It is for
the above that companies must seek ways or formulas that direct them towards
higher productivity and quality in order to be competitive. In order to be in constant
development and growth, to avoid stagnation or failure and to maintain
comparative advantages, companies have to keep in mind a main and important
factor and that is to be constantly looking for improvements; that is why within
their strategic planning they must have tools that allow this and that is why
Benchmarking is known. This allows them to be able to know how other
companies that handle the same product or service are working and obtain
information that serves to improve the company and enter into market
competitiveness.
Benchmarking is a process that allows organizations to improve based on
existing ideas by making a comparison between your business and the
competition (both direct and indirect), as well as with leading businesses in other
industries or other markets with the intention of discovering and analyze what
their winning strategies are and, if possible, apply them in your own company. It
serves as a weapon of competitive intelligence. Using benchmarking allows us
as a company to identify our best competitor and one of the ways in which we
can do it very easily today is through the internet; This will allow us to know what
the weak points of your competition are and what I can obtain from there for my
benefit. In this way, using this information well, you will be able to make decisions
to better invest your efforts and then measure the results.
The application of this technique allows organizations to achieve higher quality in
their products, services and processes, based on cooperation, collaboration and
the exchange of information. Its objective is to correct errors and identify
opportunities, to learn to solve problems and make decisions according to the
patterns of the leaders; therefore, service quality is one of its applications.
The benefit that we can obtain from Benchmarking is the help it provides us to be
able to increase the expectations and trust of our clients. In order to get to that
point, competitive companies must be continually changing and adapting to the
market. For this reason, it is necessary to motivate the personnel so that they
trust an organization and, therefore, both achieve the new objectives set,
 First, staff must identify a need for change.
 Second, they must identify what they want to change and why.
 Third, design a plan to help them execute the change.
The analysis of best practices will allow us to have a deeper understanding of the
activities of our competition, better understand how our efforts translate into
results, and discover the best ways to increase your results compared to the
competition.
Benchmarking in strategic planning helps a lot in the following points:
Find new opportunities: identify tactics where your competitors are getting results
and identify new channels where the potential can be high.
Optimize your strategy or tactics: After identifying the weak points of your
competitors you can develop a strategy and apply it to see the results.
Obtain information: obtain much simpler and more manageable reports. In this
way, the information can be shared in a standardized way, facilitating its
application and reaching the directors to make decisions.
In essence, this is the importance of benchmarking, allowing the company to
capitalize on the success of your competitors and avoid your failures.
To improve Benchmarking, innovation and techniques are used for the areas and
organizational cultures, but each company adapts it to its needs and established
objectives. There are basic elements alongside these tools:
Continuity. It is done for a long-term period.
Methodology. It is a systematic process where situations are established and
performance is measured. What stimulates change in the company.
Evaluation objective. Practices, work processes, products, services, etc. are
investigated.
Evaluation object. It is comparing the company with other similar ones.
It is important to make clear that Benchmarking is not a mechanism to determine
resource reductions. Resources will be allocated effectively to support customer
needs and obtain customer satisfaction. Nor is it a panacea or a program. It has
to be an ongoing management process that requires constant updating, the
constant collection and selection of external best practices and performance for
incorporation into decision-making and communications functions at all levels of
the business. It must have a structured methodology for obtaining information,
however, it must be flexible to incorporate new and innovative ways
The types of Benchmarking are mentioned below:
 Internal Benchmarking: This type of Benchmarking occurs when the
company looks for the best practices within its limits. Parameters are
compared between different locations of the same organization. It is about
learning from the best, from their good practices, from those difficult points
that can be solved, and that, in fact, are by some employees, regardless
of the official doctrine of the company. In this type of Benchmarking, it is
assumed that there are differences between the different work processes
of the same organization as a result of geography, local history, the
organization, the nature of the administration and that of the different
employees. When companies identify their best business practices they
realize the benefits of this activity by being able to transfer this information
to other parts of the organization. In addition, it is very useful to motivate
employees to communicate with each other and stimulates joint problem
solving.
  External Benchmarking: In turn, this type of Benchmarking is divided into
three:
o Competitive Benchmarking: This guides competitors about their
products, services and processes. The information obtained is of
utmost importance since the practices of the competition have
effects on customers and suppliers, added that similar processes
are carried out, so we will learn from them.
o Generic Benchmarking This likewise focuses on products, services
and work processes, but the comparison is not precisely with similar
or direct companies. The aim is to obtain information on the practice
of a company considered a leader in a specific area. It is called
generic because it applies to functions or processes that are
common to many companies.
o Functional Benchmarking: If you want to outperform the
competition, you must carry out this type of benchmarking. The
functional one identifies the most successful practice of another
company, whether or not it is a competitor, but which is considered
a leader in a specific area of interest. Compare the company's
standards with those of the industry to which it belongs. Its objective
is to identify the best practices of any type of organization that has
a reputation for excellence in the specific area that is being
benchmarked. It is carried out between companies in the same
sector, but which provide services or supply products that are not
directly competitive with each other. This type of activity has proven
to be productive as it fosters an interest in research and shared
data.
In general, we can conclude that the Benchmarking study will serve as a tool
within strategic planning that will allow us to improve the performance of our
company by allowing us to identify the best business practices among the leading
industries, so that we are more competitive and can succeed in a changing and
global market in which companies have to perform today. It is a useful tool to
innovate the company, but it all depends on the degree to which we study the
company. The study must be done quickly, because if the information is very old,
it will not be useful to us due to the various changes in the market. We must
investigate to the depths of the company since this will be our starting point to be
able to detect the areas to analyze.
Finally, it is a business practice that, when adapted and implemented in our
company, will improve our company's work processes and allow us to be
competitive and have a place in the market.