How can companies achieve excellence through benchmarking? This paper explores benchmarking as a process for identifying and adopting best practices. Benchmarking involves identifying the highest standards of excellence for products, services, or processes and then implementing improvements to reach those standards. Since companies have adopted benchmarking and customized the methodology to suit their needs, the author suggests that it is important to adopt a good model. The author suggests a five‐step benchmarking model and provides two case studies of companies that have used such a process. A comparison is made between the two case studies, giving insight into the effectiveness of the system and also into what other companies might do to customize a system for their own needs. This study is practical and highlights the importance of benchmarking as a continuous and competitive improvement process. By comparing the two case studies, the model is further refined and shown to be of value across a wide number of applications.
Published in Benchmarking: An International Journal, this paper is directly aligned with the journal's core focus. It offers an overview of benchmarking methodology, which fits well with the journal's purpose of promoting best practices and knowledge sharing in the field of benchmarking.