Benchmarking, the process of identifying, understanding and adapting outstanding business practices, is rapidly proving itself to be an essential management tool. Whether it is being used as part of a formal quality management system, a convenient measure of business performance or as a well-structured means to improving competitiveness, benchmarking now affects many departments in a broad variety of companies. The tThis step-by-step guide to implementing a benchmarking system within an organization explains in details the practicalities of benchmarking and assesses the value of and differences between the four main types of benchmarking: internal benchmarking; competitive benchmarking; non-competitive benchmarking; and best practice/world class benchmarking. It includes detailed cases examples of benchmarking in practice and an action checklist that managers can apply to their own organizations.