Don't Be Afraid To Work With Your Competition

When you want to put together a successful business that is organic from the top level to the bottom, there are little ways to do better than by using the Six Sigma benchmarking philosophy. The benchmarking plan is a new concept that has proven successful and the concept never even was really put into place until the early 1990s when it was determined that the best way to run a successful business was to plan and use the strategies of other successful companies and then use those ideas as their own. It has been working and, once benchmarking started to take hold in the Six Sigma philosophy, 86 companies established the International Bench-marketing Clearinghouse to teach other companies the way that a business can best be run.

STARTING OUT, The best way to start benchmarking is to establish a partner within the Benchmarking Clearinghouse. This group represents members from all different industries, institutions and government agencies. Determine what you want to benchmark: Budgeting, finance, information technology, facility management or competitive analysis, for example. The partnership arrangement is usually reciprocal in nature. Target companies will gain insight into the operations of the company initiating the benchmarking. Essentially, they also have benchmarking needs. Therefore, most corporations choose a partner that may benefit from one of their best practices. Companies that benchmark marketing should consider benchmarking elements that are most important to their customers, such as quality, service and pricing methods.

ESTABLISHING A TEAM, Most benchmarking companies assign people from different functional areas to study best practices from other companies. For example, a manufacturer may send a team comprised of a plant manager, engineer, finance professional and product manager. The partner company does the same. Representatives from both companies then spend time studying each others operations.

You always have to be sure that the information is exchanged openly and that everything is within the bounds of a legal system that might be checking your businesses out. Sometimes trading information with other companies can be risky, but as long as everything is above the table, everything can lead to success for both sides.

Once the benchmarking has been completed, be sure to stay in touch with your partner company to check up on how they are doing using your methods and share with them the success you have had using their methods. Make sure to expand your partnerships and be sure to may connections with even more companies in similar fields who can help advance your company.