Sources of Benchmark Studies

Somehow I found myself researching benchmarking vendors this morning. Usually I think of the APQC, formerly American Productivity and Quality Center, as the source of such studies. They do seem to be the leader and their Web site provides lots of information on the topic.

But a few other names came up too. (I’ve excluded some specialists in particular fields such as customer service or health care.):

Kaiser Associates
Reset Group (New Zealand)
Resource Services Inc.
Best Practices LLC
MarketingSherpa
MarketingProfs
Cornerstone (banking)


Some of these simply do Web surveys. I wouldn’t trust those without closely examining the technique because it’s too easy for people to give inaccurate replies. Others do more traditional in-depth studies. The studies may be within a single organization, among firms in a single industry, or across industries.