Reference Points and Resources for Benchmarking

Other sources of information and help include:

• Your trade association (020 7395 8283). Eg. Trade Association Forum
• The Benchmark Index (08700 111143)
• is4profit offers 'free small business advice and information' – this defines benchmarking and how to go about it.
• BenchmarkPortal is the Source for contact centres. It has call centre reports and tools, with data broken down by industry:

• Financial Services
• Government
• Media and Publishing
• Retail
• Telecommunications
• Travel and Hospitality

• UK Customer Satisfaction Index - broken down by industry
• The Best Practice Club (0800 435399): 'for large public and private sector companies'. Typical areas covered include:

• People Management
• Health and Safety
• Customer Services
• Business Improvement

• Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
• People Insight bring benchmarking data from hundreds of employee engagement surveys and over 3 million responses.
• International organisation for Standardization, responsible for the ISO 9000, ISO 14000, ISO 27000, ISO 22000 and other international management standards.
• OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification
• Global Manager Group provide a training presentation and handouts on benchmarking certification
• BPIR.com has an excellent benchmarking overview article covering differences, uses, and challenges
• Benchmarking is usually part of a larger effort, usually a Process Re-engineering or Quality Improvement initiative. The Westinghouse Quality Management System shows one way of fitting it all together
• BQF Benchmarking event
• KPIs are published by Constructing Excellence