Benchmarking: The Japanese experience

Abstract There are five areas for benchmarking: product, function, process, management and strategy. Successful benchmarking requires five steps. 1. Clarifying the goals of benchmarking; 2. Organizing a benchmarking team; 3. Selecting a target organization; 4. Collecting and analysing information; 5. Devising an action plan. The key success factors are that benchmarking should be a learning process and that it should be continuous. The main limitations of benchmarking are the problem of collecting the right kind of information, the limited potential of imitative products and processes, and the difficulty of implementing the findings of a benchmarking study.