Benchmarking is a measurement of the quality of an organization’s policies, products, programs, strategies, etc., and their comparison with standard measurement, or similar measurement of its peers. The objectives of benchmarking are;
1 To determine what and where improvements are called for.
2 To analyze how other organizations achieve their high performance levels.
3 To use this information to improve performance
Benchmarking is also called; the process of identifying best practices in relation to both products and services. I work for a non-profit organization where we use strategic benchmarking to indicate where the organization needs overall best performance by examining the long terms strategies and general approaches that have enable high performances to success. When you operate on grants, funding sources require high performance and accountability in order to renew their awards-contract each year. The organizations are reimbursed for service provided on performance-based. So there is a constant challenge to stay in business. In performance there is also competitive benchmarking to deal with other organization providing the same services like the public schools, the nursing homes, the hospitals, and the government funded universities as well. Non-profit organizations involve in internal benchmarking for measurement of effective use of available resources, performance evaluation within departments, employees satisfaction, and wages comparison in HR, employee welfare. Non-profit also involve in external benchmarking in analyzing outside organizations that are known to be best in class and services. External benchmarking provides opportunities of learning from those who are at the leading edge.