Benchmarking: and the possibilities of its application as a tool for continuous improvement in organizations

Abstract

In our contemporary, dynamic, changing, intertwined world, organizations generally face growing and accelerating challenges at all levels: technological, informational, economic, legal, local, regionally and globally. In these organizations’ efforts to confront it, they must search for a path that achieves one or more of the following goals:
1- Respect the desires of customers (consumers) and work to satisfy and fulfill them.
2- Going beyond local and regional borders to reach the global market with all its complexities, called export orientation.
3- Analyzing and understanding the interaction of market forces in all their dimensions (market economy).
To achieve the above, it is necessary to consider the forces of current and expected competition and to seek scientific and practical answers to vital questions: How do you outperform competitors? How do you differentiate from them?
This answer is for the organization to have a competitive advantage or (more) on a strong basis represented by the organization’s driving forces (the ability to innovate and modernize / the flow of operations/performance measurements / the organization’s culture/work teams), which it uses against the pressing forces (push forces). (Customers/shareholders/market interactions/competition/ common technology in global markets), that is, the task environment and the general environment surrounding the organization. In light of this, the organization is either a learner or a teacher; in other words, it is either a leader or a follower, and in both cases, it depends on the stage. Learning is considered one of the prevailing tools for an organization to enter the arena of global competition because learning allows it to answer the basic question, “What distinguishes us as an organization? It is the essence of the philosophy that calls for ‘Know yourself and know your competitor.’” Based on the above, different tools and approaches are used, and perhaps benchmarking is one of the most prominent tools in studying and analyzing distinguished (pioneering) applications to seize opportunities in the competitive environment to achieve competitive advantage.