The continual search for the most effective method of accomplishing a task through comparison of existing methods and performance levels with those of other organizations or with other subunits within the same organization is called benchmarking. Sometimes organizations benchmark their operations against similar organizations, including their competitors. In other cases, organizations benchmark against a completely different type of organization. For example, a telecommunications company benchmarked its customer service operations against a NASCAR pit crew. The idea was to see how the telecommunications company's customer service unit could improve its response time by learning from the NASCAR crew. The pit crew, of course, had honed its procedures meticulously to get the necessary service accomplished in the least time possible. This type of benchmarking study is sometimes referred to as benchmarking "outside the box."

Required:

1. How could your college or university benefit from benchmarking against a similar institution of higher education'.' What departments, operations, or procedures might be appropriate for the locus of such a benchmarking study) ?
2. How could your college or university benefit from benchmarking outside the box? What departments, operations, or procedures might benefit from such a study? What noneducational organizations might be chosen for the benchmarking study?