ABSTRACT
Benchmarking emerged in the exponential growth of strategic management tools in the 1990s. The pursuit of excellence requires ‘above average performance in the industry in the long run’. This required competitor or comparator analysis. It grew out of commodity-based manufacturing striving to achieve low-cost manufacturer status. In increasingly service-based industries, and those manufacturing where product alone is not enough to gain long-term competitive advantage, benchmarking has taken on a more strategic role. Basic processes are superseded by strategic capabilities made up of assets, skills and systems.
This chapter provides a considered view of strategic benchmarking as a way in which organisations can develop sustainable competitive advantage. Examples are given of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, as they prepared themselves for the sale to BMW/Audi, and Mobil Plastics Europe where they benchmarked themselves not against the rest of the plastic film manufacturing industry but as an integral part of the food and drink industry.
