MODELING THE BENCHMARKING PROCESS

Abstract

Introduction. Benchmarking is a modern management tool that allows you to identify problematic business processes and turn them into competitive advantages by finding and implementing the best practices of successful companies. Scientific publications in recent years demonstrate a wide variety of benchmarking models. But approaches to their formation in most cases are based on rethinking or recreating existing models. Without denying their correctness, we must note that none of them is able to cover the entire variety of types of benchmarking.

Purpose. The aim of the article is to develop a universal scientifically based model of the benchmarking process, taking into account the characteristics of all its types.

Materials and methods. Modern researchers distinguish four approaches that scientists rely on when modeling processes: recursive, linear, parallel, and conjunctive. For the first time, we analyzed benchmarking models described in scientific articles over the past six years for the authors’ use of each of these four approaches. This allowed us to identify previously unnoticed potential in the field of process modeling, which allows us to build a universal scientifically sound model of the benchmarking process, taking into account the characteristics of all its types.

Results. Benchmarking is a continuous process of monitoring and comparing business performance with its competitors. Accordingly, most authors of models of this process use a recursive approach, which describes benchmarking through a feedback loop. Only in one model is benchmarking presented through the prism of a linear approach - as a chain of sequential stages, and only one of the authors additionally uses elements of a parallel approach, reflecting the mutual influence of benchmarking and adaptive enterprise management. At the same time, the conjunctive approach to process modeling is not used by any of the authors, although it has the greatest potential for building a universal benchmarking model. The conjunctive approach gives the process variability and shows it as a set of several trajectories, from which the one that best meets the specific conditions of business functioning is selected. Based on a combination of the recursive and conjunctive approaches, we have developed a universal three-phase model of the benchmarking process, which covers all its types.

Prospects. In this article, we have initiated an examination of the relationship between the benchmarking model and the processes of competitive intelligence and marketing research. This relationship will be further detailed using a parallel approach to process modeling.