First, the origin and application status of benchmarking management
Since Xerox successfully started benchmarking, many well-known enterprises around the world, such as IBM, AT & amp； T, Kodak, Mobil Oil and other Fortune 500 companies all regard benchmarking management as the best guidance for competition, and optimize their business behavior to enhance or consolidate their competitive position. Benchmarking management has become a recognized management method of "striving for strength" by foreign enterprises, and it has also been listed as a key project in the audit of "American National Quality Award". Moreover, in foreign countries, it has been valued and applied by non-enterprise organizations such as government departments and received good results. The word "benchmarking" is no longer strange in China, and well-known domestic enterprises such as Haier, Avon, Li Ning and Lenovo have also achieved great success by adopting benchmarking. In fact, in popular terms, benchmarking is "learning from the example". The reason is very simple, but benchmarking is not a slogan, but an effective method system, which is a sharp weapon to solve key problems such as what to learn, how to learn, and what kind of "achievements" to learn.
Second, the definition and connotation of benchmarking management
American Productivity and Quality Center defines benchmarking as: "Benchmarking management is a systematic and continuous evaluation process. By constantly comparing organizational processes with global business leaders, we can obtain information that will help improve business performance. " Drawing lessons from this definition, this paper holds that benchmarking is a continuous management activity, which continuously discovers and identifies the best practices of a certain level in the industry or other industries in a systematic and structured way, compares organizations of the same level with them, finds out the gaps, and then introduces the best practices to improve performance and catch up. Benchmarking management contains the profound connotation of scientific management law, which better embodies the essential characteristics of modern knowledge management in pursuit of competitive advantage. Although benchmarking comes from enterprises, it is also suitable for non-enterprise organizations such as government departments because of its learning and openness. The idea behind benchmarking is open: with the attitude of "cooperation" and "win-win", actively and humbly learn all the best practices that can be used for reference, and constantly achieve breakthrough, improvement and transcendence of performance.
Third, implement benchmarking management.
Benchmarking management belongs to applied research and has its systematic and structured implementation steps. After consulting a lot of materials, I summarized the following learning experience for discussion only.
1 Determine the benchmark project, target and scope; A clear goal and a strictly controlled and clearly defined scope are very important for the successful implementation of benchmarking, which can avoid blindness in the process of benchmarking.
2. Analyze your own program and draw a detailed chart to show the relationship between each step and process in the benchmarking project, and locate key points and indicate the completion method of the process, so as to have a thorough understanding of the actual operation. 3. Investigate potential benchmarking targets (partners); The benchmarking team should start from 2 as far as possible.
Collect information through multiple channels and determine a certain number of comparable potential benchmarking objects. If possible, benchmarking objectives should first include other excellent departments within the organization.
4. Select performance evaluation criteria; Performance evaluation criteria can quantify all aspects that are important to performance. Carefully choose an easy-to-understand and universal evaluation standard (multi-index system) to measure the selected program or function and performance comparison.
5. Evaluate your performance; Benchmarking management team collects internal data, applies the performance evaluation criteria selected in step 4 to the projects under benchmarking management, and obtains the current performance evaluation results.
6. Determine the benchmarking object and collect its information; The benchmarking team collects the performance evaluation data of each potential benchmarking object, compares it with its own performance evaluation data, and selects the best performance as the benchmarking object. Then try to understand their working procedures and collect information about excellent methods, measures and management know-how. This step is to find the essence of best practices.
7. Conduct gap analysis to determine best practices; The purpose of gap analysis is not to let benchmarking management team identify the difference between itself and the target, but to understand why there is such a difference, what makes one process better than another, what kind of practice will produce better performance, determine the factors that can become best practices, explore better practices, and finally find and determine the best practices.
8. Set performance targets and introduce best practices; On the basis of the previous step, exclude the influence of incomparable factors and set the performance goals scientifically and objectively. Then, use the method of "reference-transformation-adoption" to introduce best practices. Benchmarking management team should formulate specific action plans to implement best practices, including implementation plan, personnel arrangement and technology 3.
Support, etc.
9. Monitor the implementation results; The best practices introduced need special attention and cultivation, and the factors that affect the success of the new program should also be paid attention to and adjusted as needed to ensure that the operation conforms to the original design and produces the expected results, otherwise it will face the danger of returning to the previous work program due to lack of support. It is necessary to monitor and track the performance evaluation standards, and new successful practices need to be institutionalized.
10 Revise the performance evaluation standard; Both internal and external environments are changing, and best practices are relative and dynamic. Health benchmarks need to be monitored, evaluated and readjusted. Therefore, benchmarking should be a process of constantly looking for best practices to continuously improve organizational performance.
To sum up, due to the different nature, actual situation and needs of the organization, the implementation method of each step of benchmarking may be different, and the breadth and depth of implementation are also different. For example, there may be many competitive factors in the implementation of benchmarking in enterprises. Although win-win cooperation should be advocated, the depth of cooperation will inevitably be affected to varying degrees, so it is more difficult to collect information. Although government departments have competitive factors, they are not as direct and obvious as enterprises, or even do not exist, so cooperation may be easier to achieve and win-win may be easier to achieve. However, due to different departments or national conditions, it may be more difficult to choose performance evaluation standards and set performance goals. Therefore, the enlightenment here is to carry out cross-industry and cross-field benchmarking, reduce the influence of competitive factors on the target, and pay special attention to the incomparable factors of the organization.
Fourth, the characteristics of benchmarking management
As the old saying goes, "Know yourself and know yourself, and you will win every battle" and "Stones from other mountains can attack jade". Benchmarking management is to help organizations actively "know ourselves and ourselves", find "stones from other mountains", overcome difficulties and "bottlenecks", improve performance and achieve "invincible". This is possible, because compared with traditional management methods, it has its own characteristics and advantages and can make positive contributions to the organization.
Characteristics of benchmarking management
First, benchmarking is essentially a practice-oriented, process-oriented and method-oriented management method. By learning from the successful experience of others, we can optimize our own organizational processes and constantly improve the system. It is not a slogan, nor an ideological viewpoint, but to find and determine the best practice, "practice the best practice", so that enterprises can keep up with the pace of the industry, improve rapidly, and achieve their own and competitors' transcendence. Second, it has two sharp tools: best practices and measurement standards, and it emphasizes implementation and quantification, making the goal more clear, concrete and feasible. The so-called best practice is the excellent measures and methods implemented by the target rod object in enterprise management; Measurement standard refers to a set of index system that can objectively reflect the performance of management and a set of corresponding benchmark data. Benchmarking management is to find the "model" through a series of standardized procedures, see the face of the "model" clearly with a scientific index system, clarify its own position, find out the weak links, make the organization's strategy targeted, and avoid uncertainty and blindness in implementation to a certain extent. Third, benchmarking is for my use, looking for benchmarking from the whole industry or even a broader global perspective, breaking through the limitations of organizational nature and emphasizing "cooperation" and "win-win". Organizations should not only "look inward", but also "look outward", so that open organizations will be more dynamic.