Benchmarking

Benchmarking is essentially a tool for improving performance.  It is a 'quality process' used to compare the performance of like organisations. Jackson and Lund (2000) describe benchmarking as, “first and foremost, a learning process structured so as to enable those engaging in the process to compare their services/activities/products in order to identify their comparative strengths and weaknesses as a basis for self improvement and/or self-regulation”.

The process of benchmarking involves:

• identifying areas for improvement
• choosing benchmark indicators (quantitative measures of achievement) 
• collecting information to enable comparisons (in order to improve performance).
   

Comparisons might be made against:

• individual benchmarking partners or benchmarking groups
• other units within the university
• sets of accepted standards (sector, professional, industry),
  which may or may not result in certification/accreditation
• data on past performance.

Easy steps to Benchmarking...