The concept of discovering what is the best performance being achieved, whether in your company, by a competitor, or by an entirely different industry.
Benchmarking is an improvement tool whereby a company measures its performance or process against other companies’ best practices, determines how those companies achieved their performance levels, and uses the information to improve its own performance.
Benchmarking is a continuous process whereby an enterprise measures and compares all its functions, systems and practices against strong competitors, identifying quality gaps in the organization, and striving to achieve competitive advantage locally and globally.
Other Definitions
Benchmarking – A review of what others are doing in the same area. For those who appear to be particularly successful, what they do and how they do it are taken to be examples that should be emulated, i.e. used as “benchmarks”.
(Wideman Comparative Glossary of Common Project Management Terms v2.1 )
