What can a business do without benchmarking ? Let’s get to know to benchmarking so your products can compete
According to the Cambridge dictionary, benchmarking means a measuring tool or benchmark. In other words, benchmarking is an activity of comparing one thing with another. Who likes to compare?
Comparisons are not always negative. In fact, in running a business, benchmarking or comparison is an important thing that must be done by product management in preparing a new product or service from the company.
What would be a business plan without benchmarking?
Of course, the business will have difficulty competing with other similar companies. The implementation of Benchmarking aims to measure the success of the company through comparisons with services or products at other similar companies. This is done to find out if there may be gaps in performance that can be eliminated in improving performance. In addition, benchmarking capabilities will provide enormous benefits for the business being run, including
a. Competitive analysis
By benchmarking, companies can see how many competitors there are in the business world, and allow businesses to gain an edge over competitors so that later the company can find out what needs to be done to face competition in the market.
b. Mentoring performance
After benchmarking, the company already knows what the competition is like and assesses the strength of the company, so the company will not take steps to always maintain the performance of the product or service well.
c. Continuous improvement
The company will get a problem that occurs from the results of comparisons with other companies, so the company can immediately fix the problem. In addition, the existence of Benchmarkingi also has a sustainable goal of elements that have been improved
d. Planning and Goal Setting
After benchmarking, the company will set a goal in creating new, more competitive targets for the company to innovate.
e. Encourage Ownership
Benchmarking carried out by the company creates a sense of pride for employees in doing their work because they get a better understanding of each person’s role.
f. Understand Your Companies Advantage
Benchmarking compares several aspects that present the advantages and disadvantages of each similar company. Based on this, the company can recognize the company’s own advantages.
Then how to do benchmarking?
There are 6 steps involved in benchmarking, namely Planning — Collection of Information — Analysis of data — Action — Monitoring.
1. Planning
The benchmarking planning step is making a summary containing things such as the main purpose of benchmarking, what product or business will be used as a comparison, the business object to be assessed, the device used for benchmarking (if the object is a digital product), and the date of implementation. benchmarking. The following is an example of planning in benchmarking.
2. Collection of Information
As the name suggests, collection of information is an activity to collect data or information that is directed according to the planning that has been done previously. This step is classified into 2, namely General Information and Product Information.
a. General Information
General information is information that users can know without using the application. Some things that can be used as comparisons in general information such as, the release date of each product, the last updated version, the rating of the application on the Google Playstore, the number of downloaders for each digital product, information on investors who are the source of funds for each company. is an example of benchmarking at the stage of collection of general information
a. Product Information
In contrast to general information, product information can only be obtained after we use the application, so we can compare things that are more crucial in benchmarking, such as the registration procedure for each application, the time required for registration for each application, explanations of the main products. for each application, partners who work together in each application, the form of guidance provided for each application to make it easier for users, as well as additional products or features for each product. The following is an example of benchmarking at the collection of product information stage
3. Analysis of Data
After presenting the differences in each application, the next step is to analyze the data or information. Data analysis carried out includes revenue streams, partners, guidance, and additional products. From all these aspects, it will be analyzed and assessed which application is the best in each aspect. The following is an example of analyzing data
4. Action
All steps will not work without action. After presenting and analyzing the data, then the businessman needs to create a framework of actions that will be taken to build his business so that it can compete with other businesses as already compared. Things that are needed in making a framework of action include,
a. Product name
The name is one of the important things that need to be considered, because this is what will become the product icon that we make. Therefore, try to make a product name that is attractive and easy for users to remember
b. MVP (minimum valued product)
MVP is a feature detail that can be mandatory ready when the product is released. In this case, the MVP can be taken from the product information aspect that has been done previously
c. Potential partners
It is impossible for a business to run alone without a partner, so in determining the framework of action we need to think about who can be our business partners, either individuals, other digital products, information systems or legal entities.
d. Future Planning
Although the product will be released according to the detailed MVP, in the business world, product turnover will not stop at that. So, we need to think about the next development plan after the product is released. This is also done by paying attention to market conditions resulting from interactions with users until the business finds the appropriate business concept and reaches the level of maturity, scaling.
The following is an example of working on an Action after collecting information.
5. Monitoring
The last step in benchmarking is to monitor every step taken during benchmarking. With monitoring, we can see what things deviate from the plan and can fix it immediately.
After the explanation above, now we know what are the benefits of benchmarking on business processes. The product manager as the company’s business manager is responsible for benchmarking. Therefore, for those of you who aspire to become a product manager, you must have this ability.