Customer Reviews

Benchmarking Strategies: A Tool for Profit Improvement

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This is an excelent guide for anyone, from line staff to CEO's, who is embarking on a benchmarking program. Reider covers all the ins and outs of the three major classes of benchmarking - internal, external and best-in-class - and how each are related. He covers all the basics, from how to gear up with appropriate buy-in and communication, to how to conduct the actual benchmark studies themselves, to how to prepare and produce final reports. Reider's meta-message is: benchmarking is the engine that moves your company to continuous improvement and to becoming a learning organization, characterized as an organiztion that is continually benchmarking, improving and learning in a never-ending cycle of improvement. Reider includes invaluable case studies that provide the benchmarker-to-be with detailed examples of how to go about the task. Other examples include detailed questionnaires and lists of areas within organizations to explore. He left no stone unturned.

The only problem with the book, however, is the he turns over the same stones many times, so to speak, as he repeats himself over and over, drumming the message in again and again. There is some irony here, as perhaps some benchmarking on how a good management how-to book is written might have streamlined Benchmarking Strategies and made it a more readable book. Nevertheless, for those of you looking for a solid guide on how to conduct a strategic benchmarking analysis, this book is sure to help.