A relatively new, smaller company in an industry was growing fast and expected to more than double its size in the next three years because of new products in it pipeline. It wanted to compare itself with industry competitors that had already passed through this growth stage successfully. They wanted to see how they should
Benchmarking
Benchmarking: Justification to Management
At a client company, the corporate communication department, along with other staff functions, was being required to conduct some benchmarking of staffing and budgeting efficiency. We helped the client expand the study to compare measures of effectiveness along with the efficiency to provide a more meaningful comparison. We also selected different companies to benchmark various
Benchmarking: Identify Best Practices
One client was looking for best practices in three areas: business-to-business communication, face-to-face internal communication and communication measurement. For the first topic, we talked with competitors in the company’s own industry that had moved up significantly in industry-wide customer satisfaction studies. For the other two topics, we identified companies that were celebrated for excellence in
Benchmarking
What We Do We can help you gather information from other companies, even your competitors, on how they approach corporate communication. Some of the types of information we can gather include: How the communication function is staffed, how much is outsourced, where it reports, how decentralized or centralized it is, what types of activities the
“World Class” Employee Communication
The only way you’ll know if your communication program is effective for your own employees is to obtain their input through a research project.
Measuring Public Relations Effectiveness
What you probably need to do is direct audience research in addition to the best type of clip analysis available. For example, do research with customers/prospects, financial analysts, trade reporters, business reporters, potential recruitment candidates, etc. to identify their level of awareness of your company’s name and reputation in comparison to those of your competitors’.
Public Relations Benchmarking
Based on benchmarking studies I’ve done for specific clients, these numbers, for both staffing and budgeting, vary extremely widely.
Defining benchmarking questions for great results
Part of the challenge of determining the questions to ask during benchmarking is to match the questions to the purpose of the study and the outcomes you are trying to achieve. Below is a breakdown of some of the issues regarding benchmarking questions that need to be addressed before beginning a benchmarking exercise.