Benchmarking

What is benchmarking?

Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance of a company’s products, services, or processes against those of other businesses in the same sector.

It tells you what you are doing well, compared with similar businesses. It can highlight areas for improvement as well as pointing out what is making your business successful. It compares your performance for a particular trading period to that of your peers.

There are many ways to compare your business to others. It’s not just about finances. Customer feedback, for example, is an important part of delivering the best possible experience. Other examples include mystery shopping, conducting surveys or joining a benchmarking group to establish how your business is performing.

Why is it necessary?

As a first step, benchmarking will show you where there are gaps in your performance. It will help you to identify and focus on your weaknesses. Having this information is vital in making you and your business as successful as it can possibly be.

Some people initially say it is not worth comparing themselves to others because “my business is different”. But that argument completely misses the point. The reason it IS worth comparing is precisely BECAUSE your business is different.

After all, one business gets better results than another BECAUSE it has different products, different prices, different customers, different suppliers, different productivity, different marketing or something else that makes it different and therefore better.

By comparing yourself to businesses in your sector that do things differently, you can see whether your results could be better if you did things differently too.

By helping you to learn what is possible from others in your sector, it also makes it easier for you to work out what to do to improve your business and your results. All it needs is for us to look at the results together with an open mind.

What can TWC do for you?

As you are almost certainly aware, in these difficult, uncertain times it’s crucial to stay ahead of the competition. 

We are confident that our Benchmarking service is unique and has the potential to provide you with an invaluable new perspective on your business.  Although you may well be coping admirably with the current climate, it is still crucial that you are able to compare your own figures to those of your direct competitors. At TWC we are determined to help local businesses in any way possible. 

Whatever your budget or needs we have a benchmarking package that is right for you.