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92 Examples of Benchmarking

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Benchmarking is the process of comparing your results to peers in your industry. This is an essential business activity that is key to understanding competitive advantages and disadvantages. In some cases, benchmarks are also used in promotion and sales materials. The following are illustrative examples of benchmarking.

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
Next: Metrics
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Brand Metrics
Budget Variance
Business Metrics
Business Benchmark
Capability Rate
Cost Effectiveness
Customer Metrics
Cycle Time
CAC
Efficiency
CLV
Error Rate
Innovation Metrics
IT Metrics
Marketing Metrics
Experiment Cycle Time
Process Metrics
Productivity
Growth
Project Metrics
Quality Metrics
Response Time
Labor Productivity
Sales Metrics
Throughput
MTBF
Time To Market
MRR
Turnaround Time
Net Present Value
Vanity Metrics
New Revenue Rate
Payback Period
Return On Investment
Revenue Per Employee
Time To Volume
More ...
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Benchmarking Definition

A definition of benchmarking.

Metrics

An reasonably comprehensive list of metrics.

Process Metrics

The common types of process metric.

Performance Metrics

A list of common performance metrics for businesses, programs and employees.

Annual Contract Value

The definition of annual contract value with calculation examples.

Run Rate

The definition of run rate with calculation examples.

Response Time

The definition of response time with examples.

Status Report

An overview of status report with full examples.

Success Factor Definition

The definition of critical success factor.

Critical Success Factors

A few examples of critical success factors.

Performance Analysis

An overview of performance analysis with examples.

Business Metrics

A list of common business metrics.

Management Accounting Definition

A comprehensive overview of management accounting.

Efficiency Types

The common types of efficiency with examples.

Compliance Rate

The definition of compliance rate with examples.

Employee Productivity

How to measure employee productivity with examples.

Operational Performance

An overview of operational performance with examples.

On-Time Performance

An overview of on-time performance with examples.
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