use the coinciding process in other areas of your business to improve. If your competition is ahead of your com-pany in areas, use that knowledge as an opportunity to try new things. If you are always improving, you are benchmarking. Value of Benchmarking Benchmarking takes out the guesswork; it Thanks to the rise in popularity of mobile devices, benchmarking data can be taken virtually anywhere and updated on the spot. provides you with real data that helps you understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Implementing benchmarking in com-pany processes: Teaches how excellence is achieved in similar fields Shares knowledge on common prob-lems Easily improves performance expecta-Benchmarking helps you see the big picture of how to implement changes for improvement and measure data to monitor outcomes. How To Benchmark With technology at your disposal, there are many ways to gather information that are extremely easy and efficient, including web-based software, portable devices and permission-based systems. Find the tools that are optimal for you that can be used on location. Obtaining the right tools will help you effectively gather information you can mon-itor in “real time” to help increase your client retention, productivity and revenue. Start by finding what is important to the potential client. Then, do a baseline audit of existing competition to see where practices cur-rently stand. Once you win the account, perform an additional audit a month later to learn what has improved. Use a number value system, like 1-10, to gather data that is easy to measure. A quantifiable system helps compare how the client felt before and after your contract started. If the score leaps from 2 to 10, that is an 80 percent increase in satisfaction. This measurement can be used in your marketing to help you win new bids. Being able to extract comparisons between you and your competition gives the ability to evaluate if there is a difference, whether good or bad, and then capitalize on it. If the evaluation confirms you have strengths above your competition, then Circle Product Information no. 202 on page 32 www.cmmonline.com 19
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