ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some practical experiences of benchmarking in the business world by the author at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle over a period of eight years, and draws some lessons from them for the higher education sector. Alex Appleby has described several types of activity that are all labelled as benchmarking. The chapter focuses on three benchmarking, such as metric benchmarking, diagnostic benchmarking and process benchmarking. Diagnostic benchmarking is a close relation of self-assessment, which has become very popular among progressive organizations during the 1990s, as well as in institutions of further and higher education. Self-assessment in business contexts often makes use of the business excellence model, developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management. Self-assessment involves comparison between an organization's practices and performance, and the standards that the BEM describes. Process benchmarking can be an effective tool that contributes to improvements in an organization and its performance.
