Using Benchmarking to Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry leaders know that the secret to improving their business isn't always locked away in an insightful competitor analysis or an industry report. Often, the secret to improving their business is already within their walls -- it's learning from their very best employees and divisions. Based on previous research conducted by benchmarking and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC (available at http://www3.best-in-class.com/dr195.htm) two companies have turned internal knowledge into savings and sales:

- Lucent Technologies identified best individual engineer practices which

boosted productivity levels by 10 percent in eight months and yielded

six times the ROI after two years.

- A unit of Xerox drove 152% to 328% improvement in country unit sales

and over $200 million in new revenue by benchmarking the best practices

of its operating countries.

As your company approaches 2006, consider the benefits of creating a knowledge sharing culture where successful employees, divisions, or plants share 'lessons learned' with their colleagues to avoid "reinventing the wheel."

So how would one successfully create and maintain a knowledge sharing culture? Simple, compare apples to apples and then apples to oranges. In other words, first you'll need to help your marketing department in China learn from a peer, such as your marketing department in Europe. Next, you'll improve your business even more when you show your marketing department in China that they can actually learn from someone they wouldn't consider their peer, like your finance department in the US.

To launch an "apples to apples" initiative, you'll need to identify your employees, departments, or divisions that you consider to be "high performers" based on ROI, customer feedback, or revenues. Then carefully analyze their work process, compared to that of their average peer to unlock the secrets to their success -- which are often behavioral. Once you've unlocked this knowledge, champion it's value with success stories and launch an intranet where employees, divisions, and departments can seek out their peers and find solutions to daily challenges or even strategic initiatives based on the knowledge and experience of their peers.

To learn more about how to launch an "apples to oranges" initiative or building a knowledge sharing culture at your company, please contact Jonathan Tanz, Head of Research at Benchmarking and Consulting firm Best Practices, LLC at 919-767-9227 or jtanz@best-in-class.com. To view documents from our previous studies on knowledge management, visit http://www3.best-in-class.com/dr195.htm .

ABOUT BEST PRACTICES, LLC

Best Practices, LLC, conducts work based on the simple yet profound principle that organizations can chart a course to superior economic performance by studying the best business practices, operating tactics and winning strategies of world-class companies. For more information call 919-403-0251 or visit http://www3.best-in-class.com/. SOURCE Best Practices, LLC