The objective of benchmarking is to improve performance by identifying, understanding, and adopting outstanding best practices from others. If this process is carried out inside the organization, then it is called internal benchmarking. It is not uncommon for one facility within an organization to have better practices than another. Unfortunately, it is unusual for these better practices to naturally spread throughout the organization.

The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has conducted a study to understand what prevents the transfer of practices within a company. It also has made some recommendations concerning internal benchmarking.

Required:

Access http://www.apqc.org and/or other Internet resources to see if you can answer the following:

1. Why is internal benchmarking an attractive option for an organization?

2. Why do companies want to engage in internal benchmarking?

3. What are some of the organizational obstacles relating to internal benchmarking?

4. Identify some recommendations that will make internal transfers of best practices more effective.

5. Internal benchmarking is a prominent example of what is called knowledge management or knowledge sharing. Use the APQC site and other Internet resources to define knowledge management (or knowledge sharing). Now, go to KnowledgeLeader and Internal Audit and Risk Management Community (http://www.

knowledgeleader.com), and describe its external knowledge sharing service. (Alternatively, you may also wish to access and describe Ernst & Young’s knowledge sharing service called “Ernie.”)