ABSTRACT
Benchmarking processes and performance in general business areas is a beneficial action that leads to improved performance. ABPs contention is that the same applies in the alliance management field, and that companies should benchmark their relationships regularly. This chapter considers how the alliance best practice benchmarking process works with reference to the standard process. It explains Robert Camp developed a 12-stage approach to benchmarking. One of the advantages of benchmarking alliances to a set series of predetermined criteria is that comparison across industries is possible. In the ABP scoring model, scores are allocated from zero, none and so on to 100. Readers have found that scoring in such a way allows individuals to exercise suitable sophistication and nuance between different aspects of the issue in question which is missing in more simplistic scoring systems. The ABP system incorporates a series of data validation techniques to identify a data integrity score.
