Benchmarking Best Practices
A Methodology to Implement Benchmarking in Public Sector Organization
What is Benchmarking?
Types of Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a systematic process for identifying,
studying and adopting best practices and processes, in
order to improve the provision of basic services in
governmental, organizations by making internal
comparisons with high-performance divisions or external
comparisons with other high-performance institutions.
This would directly result in reducing the performance
gap, as well as increasing the satisfaction of service
recipients.
The various types of benchmarking can be divided, as
shown in Figure 2.
Types of
Benchmarking
Competitive
Benchmarking
Functional
Benchmarking
Internal
Benchmarking
Figure 2: Types of Benchmarking

Internal benchmarking
Internal benchmarking is the process of drawing
comparisons between different activities and divisions,
within the same department. The high-performance units
or divisions are identified, and their practices are adopted
by other units, divisions or departments.

Functional Benchmarking is the process of comparing
similar functions in competitive, or non-competitive,
organizations, such as accounting, public services, finance,
within the same activity for an economic sector. For
example, a comparison can be made between patient
admissions in hospitals and hotel receptions.
Figure 1: Performance gap
Why Benchmarking?
Benchmarking goals can be summarized as follows:
-
Identifying weaknesses, or areas
improvement, within current processes.
Functional benchmarking
requiring
-
Identifying improvement methods which can be used
to improve operations within the organization.
-
Benefiting from the experiences and practices of
others.

Competitive benchmarking
Competitive benchmarking is a direct comparison with the
performance of a company’s best competitors, in order to
achieve better levels of performance.
B. Prepare process flowcharts for the activities and
services provided by the department.
Benchmarking code of conduct
C. Identify benchmarking focus areas.
This code of conduct should be followed when
benchmarking:
- Obtain formal approval of the other organizations,
against which the comparisons are being made
(benchmarking partners).
-
Examples of benchmarking focus areas for procedures
and service quality in a hypothetical public hospital
Confidentiality: Maintaining the confidentiality of the
information and benchmarking findings. Such
information must not be communicated to third
parties, without the prior consent of the
benchmarking partners.
-
Exchange of information: The organization must be
willing to provide the other concerned organizations
with the same data it obtained from them.
-
Benchmarking findings should not be used in
promotional materials.
-
The identity of the benchmarking partners should be
protected when sharing benchmarking findings with
other organizations.


-
How to implement Benchmarking?

Benchmarking methodology is divided into four stages, as
shown in Figure 3.
1
2
3
4
1.1
Number of key steps
Sequence of procedures
Time taken to complete the procedure
Percentage of value-added procedures, out of
the total number of procedures
Level of professional efficiency
Number of specialist doctors, compared to the
monthly number of patients
Number of nurses, compared to the monthly
number of patients
Number of correct diagnoses, compared to the
number of diagnoses
Service Recipient Satisfaction
Identify the high-performance organizations
•Plan
1.2
•Analyze
At this stage, criteria are defined, in order to select the
best organizations in the areas of the selected
applications or services.
•Announce the results and set goals
1.3
•Implement
Figure 3: Benchmarking stages
1
Procedures
Plan
Examine the activities and services that require
improvement
It includes the following steps:
A. Identify the activities and services provided by
the department.
Collect data
Data collection mechanisms are divided as follows:

Obtain information directly through interviewing the
officials, in the high-performance departments.

Obtain information indirectly through the sources
shown in Figure 4.
C. Compare performance indicators of the department
wishing to improve operations, with those of highperformance organizations, and determine the nature
of differences and variations.
Websites
Statistical
releases
Archive
E. Determine the methods or development steps
necessary to upgrade the level of services and
overcome performance differences.
Indirect sources of
information
Local and
international
newspapers
D. Diagnose performance gaps and determine their type,
size and causes. Gaps are divided into two types, as
shown in Figure 5.
Annual reports
Positive gap
A clear indicator of good and excellent
performance, which requires more efforts
in order to maintain orincrease the
sustainability of the current performance
level
Seminars and
conferences
Figure 4: Indirect sources of information
Negative gap
At this stage, the benchmarking team performs the
following tasks:
-
Collect data and information on current performance
levels.
-
Identify the activities currently used by the
benchmarked organizations and their performance
indicators.
-
Create a database of the collected data.
2
Analyze
2.1
Analyze performance differences
The process of analyzing performance differences is
designed to understand and assess the department’s
current status, compared with high-performance
organizations. It helps to identify the reasons for the high
performance, which leads to identifying areas for
improvement, as well as the methods which can be used
to improve such performance.
The process of analyzing performance differences consists
of the following steps:
A. Examine the processes to be improved in the
department.
B. Conduct a detailed analysis of the processes and
performance indicators, of the high-performance
organizations.
An indicator showing low performance
levels, for the relevant activities and
services, thusrequiring greater effort, in
order to improve performance
Figure 5: Types of key performance gaps
2.2
Determine the targeted performance levels
Based on the development proposals for overcoming
performance gaps, the targeted future performance levels
will be identified.
The process of identifying target performance levels may
be based on certain criteria, as follows:
-
Identifying reference values, in order to measure the
extent to which the improvement process actually
achieved its goals.
-
Adopt multiple sources, with respect to performance
evaluation mechanisms, including comprehensive
feedback, by surveying the opinions of service
recipients and departmental employees.
-
Ensure that the set goals are realistic and following up
the developments by neutral individuals/ entities with
clear vision and comprehensive understanding of the
type of activity concerned.
3
3.1
Announce the results and set goals
Announce the results and ensure that the
proposed changes are appropriate
The results are announced, in order to ensure that the
proposed changes are appropriate and accepted. This also
helps in announcing and disseminating the desired service
criteria. In addition, the employees involved, in
implementing the mechanisms needed in order to achieve
the desired service standards, are trained.
3.2
Determine the operational objectives
Based on benchmarking findings, the department
determines new operational objectives, in order to
achieve the desired performance goals. In addition, it
identifies the divisions targeted for improvement.
4
Implement
4.1
Prepare development plans
Preparing development plans involves the following:
-
Develop specific time-bound plans with clear scope
for development procedures, which will be
implemented, in order to reduce or eliminate the
negative gap.
Develop specific criteria, in order to ensure the
sustainability of performance improvement, taking
into account the cost of improvements.
Ensure that the changes are accepted by all divisions/
directorates and by the relevant individuals, in order
to ensure the achievement of the desired results,
from the change.
Select the work team, which will implement the
improvements.
-
-
-
4.2
Implement and evaluate
After implementing the new work methods, which have
been developed through benchmarking, it is necessary to
study the impact of improved processes and activities, as
well as the extent to which they meet the beneficiaries’
needs and expectations.