How does your business measure up?
Summary:
Have you ever considered how your business is performing against its competitors? Consider the following statistics: -
- Only one in ten customers who feel like complaining actually complain….so how happy are your customers?
- The bottom 25% of companies are achieving profit levels that are one tenth of those achieved by the top 25%
- Supplier performance is poor. Lower quartile companies clearly do not have control over their suppliers as up to 75% (by value) of the supplies they receive are late.
Do you know how you are performing, with your customer service, your profitability, and your supplier performance?
If they answer to any of these points is that you do not know, then you should consider benchmarking yourself against your competitors.
Body:
You can benchmark yourself using both ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ criteria. Hard benchmarking focuses on quantitative management and financial information such as profitability, sales, and employee numbers. Soft (often also called best practice benchmarking) benchmarking focuses more on the culture and ethos within the business. Both sides of benchmarking are valuable – after all “What you can Measure – You can Manage.”
In financial benchmarking you normally compare your business with others in the same industry. Often the competitors are chosen to be of a similar size (By sales level or number of employees) and to be in the same geographical area, but this is not essential.
With best practise benchmarking you can choose to benchmark either within or outside the business sector. Comparison outside the business sector can often reveal some very powerful results. South West Airlines, in their early days, had a relatively small fleet of aircraft, and as a result it became essential that they were able to keep the amount of time that their planes were being refuelled and serviced to a minimum. The company studied the best practise within the Airline industry, but found that even the best was not good enough. The solution lied in an unusual location – Formula 1 motor racing! By studying the processes and procedures for pit stops where a quick turnaround is essential, the airline was able to minimise the time the planes spent on the ground and hence increase the revenues that could be achieved from their fleet.
To finish with some further statistics – but this time more positive ones. Of businesses that have been benchmarked in the last few years: -
- 47% say that it helped to increase turnover;
- 60% say that it helped improve profitability; and
- 73% thought the process was so valuable, that they were re-benchmarked
CBSL Consulting is now able to provide you with a report to show you how you are really performing. The benchmarking process brings together all of the trends and statistics from competitors in your industry, so that you can really pin-point areas that need to be addressed, and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Armed with a comprehensive report, you will be able to significantly improve the performance and profitability of your business.
