Role of CSFs in Performance Benchmarking

As we have elaborates that CSFs are a necessary part in ensuring the success of a product or a procedure. It is true in which they play a significant role in evaluating the performance of an individual or an organization. CSFs are an integral part of the benchmarking procedure as they help in understanding and identifying the areas, that required more importance and the areas that need less importance. This in turn helps in preventing duplication of efforts and in turn helping in saving the time. While we identify the gaps in the benchmarking process although comparing the results, the role of CSFs comes into play. These gaps could be covered up through identifying the CSFs and working on them to achieve the competitive edge. It could well be said that identifying the CSFs and communicating them along with everyone will help in remaining the project or process on track and in turn will help in achieving the general goals of the organization.

To harness and get the benefits of any initiative, it is important to define and adhere to certain primary success factors. In benchmarking exercise also, there are certain critical success factors and it is significant to ensure that:

1. Benchmarking is a management tool so senior managers should not only support it but should be committed to continuous improvements.

2. The benchmarking exercise should be completed through teams, preferably cross functional team.

3. The team should have a clear picture of their organization's performance and subsequently the team should approach others for comparisons.

4. The teams should have the right skills and competencies and enabling environment so as to have access to training, advice and guidance over the course of exercise.

5. The goal of the exercise should be clearly defining in the starting.

6. The scope of the work of benchmarking exercise should be clearly described Benchmarking in the starting keeping in the mind the objectives, available resources along with the experience and skill level of human resources and time available.