Financial Benchmarking
Comparing revenue, cost, financial performance and financial position to other firms. This data is generally available for public companies.Revenue per employee | Unit cost |
Cost of goods sold | Growth rate |
Gross margins | Net margins |
Margins by product / service | Revenue by product / service |
Return on assets | Return on investment |
Marketing Benchmarking
Comparing your marketing results and foundational metrics such as the cost of acquiring a customer and how much each customer is worth to your bottom line.Market share | Visitors |
Conversion rate | Customer acquisition cost |
Customer lifetime value | Customer churn rate |
Marketing spend as % of revenue | Average selling price |
Win rate | Share of wallet |
Brand Benchmarking
How well customers recognize your brand and its attributes as compared to the competition.Brand awareness | Brand recognition |
Brand loyalty | Brand perceptions |
Customer Experience Benchmarking
Comparisons of the customer experience including overall customer satisfaction and measures of customer service.Customer satisfaction | Net promoter score |
Customer effort score | Customer retention rate |
Feedback response rate | First response time |
Average resolution time | First contact resolution |
Customer perceptions of experience | Support resolution rate |
Perceived service quality | Customer loyalty |
Quality Benchmarking
The value of your products and services as compared to the competition. This can include the costs of achieving quality and metrics that highlight quality issues such as defect rate.Defect rate | Failure rate |
Rework costs | Durability |
Customer complaints | Product reviews |
Service reviews | Service consistency |
Product returns | Warrantee claims |
Perceived product usability | Customer perceptions of value |
Cost of quality | On-time delivery |
Operational Benchmarks
Metrics related to your core business processes. These differ by industry except for foundational measures such as productivity rate.Inventory Turnover | Inventory Days |
Stockout Rate | Uptime / downtime |
Productivity rate | Process efficiency |
Resource utilization | Order fulfillment time |
Human Resources Benchmarks
Measures related to employees and your extended workforce.Absenteeism rate | Cost-per-hire |
Time-to-fill | Offer acceptance rate |
New hire performance | Employee satisfaction |
Employee turnover rate | Average tenure |
Internal mobility rate | Average performance rating |
Technology
Technology metrics that are comparable to other firms in your industry such as IT costs expressed as a percentage of revenue or business volumes.IT spend as % of revenue | IT cost per employee |
IT cost per customer | IT cost per transaction |
Reliability rate | Incident resolution time |
Mean time to repair | Change success rate |
Release cycle time | Stakeholder satisfaction with IT |
Average time to detect security incidents | Security incidents by severity |
Strategic Benchmarking
Other metrics that may be important to your strategy and overall performance as a firm.Time to market | Safety incidents |
Cybersecurity incidents | Compliance rate |
Risk exposure | Operating profit |
Profit margins | Return on equity |
Current ratio | Market capitalization |
Operational efficiency | R&D as % of revenue |
Detailed Examples
Technology
A database firm benchmarks the query performance of products against the competition on a regular basis as part of their product development efforts.Financial
A utility provides investors with a comparison of financial metrics such as operating margins against industry averages.Marketing
An airline hires a consultant to benchmark customer service metrics such as customer satisfaction against key competitors.Processes
A telecom company implements a new process for provisioning and benchmarks its results against industry best practices.Markets
A trading firm benchmarks the decisioning and trading speed of its algorithms compared to what is known about the competition on the same exchange.Services
An ecommerce firm benchmarks its average fulfillment and delivery speed against key competitors.Cities
A city benchmarks its quality of life measurements against other cities in the region or world.Governments
A state benchmarks its healthcare costs and indicators of health such as life expectancy against other states in the same county.Products
A solar module manufacturer benchmarks the conversion efficiency of its products against other solar manufacturers on a global basis.Strategy
A social media firm benchmarks its spending on research & development against close competitors in the industry.Operations
An IT operations team benchmarks its uptime against a top competitor that published their uptime figures in a media report.Productivity
A data center is moving towards automating time consuming maintenance and support tasks. Before the project begins they seek employee productivity benchmarks from a consultant who is familiar with best practices in the industry.Retail
A shoe retailer compares their sales per square foot with industry peers.Overview: Benchmarking | ||
Type | ||
Definition | Comparing metrics and measures with competitors, industry averages or best internal results. | |
Value | Measuring competitive advantages and disadvantages.Determining if measured results are competitive. | |
Related Concepts |