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In order to grow both revenues and profits in a mercurial,
globalizing energy marketplace fraught with volatility, competitive
positioning is crucial. A company must understand not only
where it stands relative to its competitors in terms of size
and market share, but it must understand its strategic competencies
upon which to devise a winning strategy. In other words, a
company must understand fully the degrees of separation between
its goals and where it stands relative to achieving those
goals. To that end, benchmarking provides the information
upon which strategic moves can be formulated.
Benchmarking is the process of determining who is best in
class and why. In other words, who sets the standard? What
is the standard? And, why is that standard a useful measure
for comparison?
Modern best practices derive much from and build upon the
discipline of benchmarking. In this specific regard, benchmarking
can be defined as the process of identifying, understanding
and adapting the best practices of leaders in the field in
order to increase efficiency, improve performance and refine
business processes.
A company may compare itself to its competitors in terms
of production efficiency, supply-chain costs, monopolistic
advantages, deep pockets, know-how, distribution infrastructure,
barriers to entry, etc., in order to better understand how
it measures up and how well prepared it is to meet the challenges
ahead. However, that's only part of the story. Knowing which
strategic advantages or competencies to exploit in order to
develop a decisive edge in the marketplace requires measuring
the company using an array of benchmarking scales, and then
developing areas in which the company has the required resources
with which to excel.
ZECG's knowledge-based energy information platform, combined
with the many years of experience of the principals and executive
consultants, enables the development of meaningful, accurate
and reliable benchmarks for informed decision-making and strategy
development. |
