How Benchmarking methodology brings Excellence into the business

In the competitive arena today, with such an intense global competition between companies, all the top notched businesses should not only sustain their competitive advantages but also contrive some ways to improve their performance in order to survive in the market. Benchmarking is a tool by which companies can enhance productivity and solve the setbacks. Apart from other assessment methods which have been recently implemented, benchmarking process provide the companies with fertile ground to improve efficiency of individual parts and participants in order to increase total productivity. There are numerous benchmarking methodologies which have been using as the strategic management tools. The most difficult part is to find which benchmarking type is appropriate for a target company. This article aimed to comprehensively explain how Benchmarking Process can lead to excellene in several types of expertise with different business styles. Following this, Two top-notched companies, Shell chemical UK Ltd and Toyota, which successfully have applied benchmarking method were studied and scrutinized.This article could explain comprehensively that how various benchmarking methods can lead to the practical improvement into the mentioned componies. It is concluded that the first step to initiate the benchmarking journey is to choose the most suitable methods of benchmarking that can fulfill company requirements. In the first case study, Internal benchmarking of British and Chinese firms revealed this fact that companies can have the same problems but with different characteristics. Applying the Kanban technique laid the foundation for Japanese firms to reduce their lead time to five working days. Moreover, British suppliers had applied traditional management forecasting methods specifically in quality and delivery sectors. the overriding conclusion of second case study can be this fact that appling the different types of benchmarking can result in giganic improvement in various part of a business. Benchamrking of Shel company included to major parts; internal and external benchmarking. In the first phase, internal benchamrking was applied.Second phase concentrated on external benchamrking. During this part, two appropriate partners, which were in the same industry and have the most comon charactrestics, were selected. Internal and external benchmarking method assisted Shel company to recognize company status que and brings exellence into the business.

Keywords:

Benchmarking Method , Toyota , Shell , Internal Brnchmarking , External Benchmarking , Best-in Class