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Benchmarking-measuring and comparing for continuous improvement
Information Outlook, July, 2002 by Sue Henczel
Benchmarking for Success
WHEN ORGANIZATIONS WANT TO IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE, THEY BENCHMARK. They compare and measure their policies, practices, philosophies and performance against high-performing organizations anywhere in the world. The process of benchmarking is used to identify useful business practices, innovative ideas, effective operating procedures and winning strategies that can be adopted by an organization to accelerate its own progress by ensuring quality, productivity and cost improvements. In other words, benchmarking involves investigating how things are done elsewhere and where they are done differently or better, to see whether a group could adapt the processes of another organization to improve their own processes.
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Libraries have traditionally used external comparative benchmarking studies to measure themselves against others in order to justify their existence or prove their value and support their case for maintaining existing levels of staffing or funding. These studies were invariably based on statistics gathered and shared for the purposes of measuring how they rank with other libraries (Gohlke, 1998). Libraries have also employed internal benchmarking methodologies to measure the "value" they contribute to their organization and compare this against what is contributed by other departments, divisions or information providers.
One of the primary aims of a special librarian is to ensure the service they offer contributes significantly to the success of the organization and is as good as it can be. To do this, a librarian must utilize internal and external benchmarking processes to measure performance and identify possible areas of improvement.
Defining Benchmarking
There are many similar definitions of benchmarking, most of which fit neatly in two groups--those that include implementation of the findings and those that do not. Jane Foot's definition is widely cited in library literature, yet it's a definition that does not incorporate the implementation of the identified best practices. On reflection, I realized many of the benchmarking case studies I had read were focused on the identification of the benchmarks and the measurement and comparison process, while very few followed through to the process of adapting best practice to improve a process.
Foot (1998) defines benchmarking as the process of comparing yourself with others--measuring your service's processes and performance and systematically comparing them to the performance of others in order to seek best practice. It enables the identification of areas where improvement is possible, how it might be achieved and what benefit it might deliver. Other definitions include the implementation of best practice to improve a process beyond the benchmark performance such as that used by Partnership Sourcing (1997).
Christopher Bogan and Michael English (1994) and Gerald Balm (1992) clarify some of the associated terms:
* A benchmark is a fixed point, target or standard against which you can be measured.
* A benchmarking partner is any group or organization that is used for comparison.
* The highest performer in a benchmarking partnership is considered the best practices organization (i.e., the one that has the most efficient and effective practices in place). The goal of benchmarking is to improve performance by adopting the best practices of benchmarking partners.
* Performance indicators are used for measuring performance and monitoring progress against set targets.
Types of Benchmarking
Benchmarking can be done within your organization or externally, with other organizations. Internal benchmarking is a comparison of similar operations within your organization, while external forms of benchmarking include competitive benchmarking (a comparison with your competitors) and functional benchmarking (a comparison of methods with organizations who have similar processes in a different industry) (Hinton, Francis and Holloway, 2000).
Data benchmarking measures and compares inputs and outputs of a process against a benchmark to assess performance. Process benchmarking analyzes a sequence of activities and compares them with similar functions in best practice organizations.
Historical Development
Although benchmarking has been used as a management tool for many years, it experienced resurgence in the early 1980s due to the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement, in which benchmarking was inherent as a means of ensuring quality improvements. Its focus was on accountability, performance measures, best practice and the rational use of resources--all issues of interest to librarians and the organizations that fund and support the services.
Since the mid-1980s librarians have seen benchmarking as having two distinct purposes: to demonstrate how their services and overall performance rank against those of other similar libraries (external benchmarking); and to measure the value of their contribution within their organization, as compared with that of other internal divisions and information services (internal benchmarking). In Australia, special libraries (particularly those in the government sector) were the earliest exponents of external benchmarking methodologies, using their informal networks to identify suitable benchmarking partners.
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