Company Diagnosis through Process-Based Benchmarking
The provision of comparable services, e. g. administrative services or services related with production, is conducted in many different organisational ways, even within the same company. Whereas in one company, logistics is located within fulfilment, in other companies it might be located in the purchasing or administration department. In some cases, sales of refurbishment services will be realised through an independent sales organisation while in other cases it will be part of a centralised sales department. As diverse as the reasons for different organisational structures can be, as diverse is their complexity. Diversity creates intransparency and complicates the comparability and the process of finding internal best practices or applicable external benchmarks.
Process-based benchmarking allows the comparison of companies which are organised differently but produce similar services using the following proceeding:
- A process model of the company will be defined
- All employees will be assigned to the according process steps of the services supplied
- The services supplied through the processes will be measured through output factors
- Cost of services supplied will be defined
- Evaluating the data, all business units within the scope of all company areas, functions and subsidiaries will be identified which have the potential for productivity improvement and/or cost reduction
Process-based benchmarking has been used for diagnosis of companies with 800 to 40.000 employees and sales volumes from 150 mill euros to 11 bn. euros worldwide. Transparency on where improvement potential is located within the company provides the basis for their successive realisation. In many companies process-based benchmarking has been the start for a process-oriented company view followed by the implementation of a process-based management and HR-reporting.
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