Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Benchmarking: Problem-Solving
Benchmarking is used by a wide variety of industries. At its heart lies the principle that it is necessary to have some agreed-upon standard or benchmark, to ensure that the organization is fulfilling its function and delivering a performance of high quality. Simply trying to be better without having data-based goals is not useful. As noted by Iacobucci & Nordhielm (2000) in their article for the Harvard Business Review, however, there are many ways to engage in benchmarking and for service-based industries, taking into consideration customer input is critical. For example, one method of benchmarking in the hotel industry is to solicit information about every step of the customer’s buying experience and perceptions of value. By setting benchmarks for each and every value delivery point, the organization can engage in more meaningful goal-setting (Iacobucci & Nordhielm 2000).
Setting goals is not enough. They must be the right types of goals. The advantage of focusing on the customer in the hotel industry ties into Michael Porter’s view of value delivery as at the heart of every company’s purpose for being. If an organization does not know what its essential value proposition is for customers, it is not capable of communicating why...
But benchmarking is not necessarily uniform at every juncture, at least according to the Harvard Business Review article. For example, for one hotel chain, benchmarking based upon price (i.e., offering the greatest discount to consumers) might be the primary driver at the beginning of the value chain, or perceptions of luxury in the case of a high-end chain. But quality and service benchmarks may emerge later on, once consumers become patrons of the chain. Then, benchmarks for speedy transportation of customers to their rooms and customer satisfaction regarding the offering of assistance with finding local attractions may be the drivers.
Although the Harvard Business Review article stresses taking a flexible and creative approach to value in most industries, within certain industries themselves, benchmarking may be viewed in a more narrow sense. According to Ettorchi-Tardy, Levif, & Michel (2012), cost and quality in healthcare are the primary drivers of benchmarking, and customer satisfaction may be less important, given that for-profit institutions are less dominant in healthcare. Also, customers may not always perceive the immediate value of the service they are receiving (customers may find a doctor cold, even though the doctor is competent…
References
Ettorchi-Tardy, A., Levif, M., & Michel, P. (2012). Benchmarking: A method for continuous quality improvement in health. Healthcare Policy, 7(4), e101–e119. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3359088/
Iacobucci, D. & Nordhielm, C. (2000). Creative benchmarking. The Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2000/11/creative-benchmarking
Benchmarking Project Benchmarking Different industries face different obstacles in regard to project management. A construction project will tackle tangible and physical spaces while an IT project will reside more in an intangible and uncertain space. Because of these differences project management is difficult to compare across different industries. Therefore benchmarking must be constructed in each industry individually so that project managers can compare their projects to metrics that are relevant to their
Benchmarking Human Resources: Monitoring the Effectiveness of a "Tell it to the Director" Initiative on Patient Satisfaction at a Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center As the nation's largest healthcare provider, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has the responsibility to use taxpayer resources to their maximum advantage in accomplishing its longstanding mandate to "care for him who shall have borne the battle, his widow and orphan" (Doebbeling et al., 2002).
The input to determining what to benchmark is to recognize the productivity or results or result of the business unit. The product may not be willingly obvious. Then it is time to recognize the procedure of the consumer's reports and set of opportunity. The purchaser is the person or group with a serious need. The customer's prospect drive the classification of the products, services or development to be benchmarked,
Benchmarking Do you think benchmarking is just another fad or is it useful for all firms? Why or why not? How could benchmark be used in the nursing field? Does it rate as a viable tool for future development? Benchmarking is a useful concept for organizations as it defines and elaborates the best practices of an organization and makes them superior among its competitors in establishing a leading position (Coers, Gardner, Raybourn,
Benchmarking Managerial accounting and financial accounting are based on different principles. Financial accounting is a formal system that is based on reporting to both internal and external stakeholders. As a result, financial accounting is based on a set of rules that is common to all public companies. Within these rules, the methods of accounting and reporting must be similar at these companies, so that people viewing the financial information can compare
Benchmarks in Government 1901-1981 Order ID: Benchmarks in the Rise of Big Gov. 1901 -- 1981 Benchmarks in the Rise of Big Government The United States of American 1901 -- 1981 The purpose of this paper is to identify major benchmarks in the history of the United States between the years 1901 to 1982 that gave the government more power and made the government a larger machine that it was already. Since the original conception