Success stories: how to correctly adopt other people's experience for your own benefit. How to adopt the best practices of other companies Learn from experience

Very often we tend to try on the career examples of other people, focus on them and even sometimes copy them. We buy books by authors who talk about their path to success, go to seminars and lectures, often sincerely believing that the paths from point A to point B are in most cases almost the same, and we only need the right guide. As a result, you have to look back and wonder what went wrong. In fact, in order to successfully complete your journey, you do not need to completely rely on the authority of someone who has already been to the finish line. Let's figure out how to correctly learn from other people's experiences and what you should pay attention to.

1. Point A

The beginning of your path and the one chosen as an example may not always coincide. Depending on this, the duration and nature of the movement may also differ. Perhaps the person you are targeting was in much more favorable conditions, which as a result required much simpler actions from him than you will have to do. And vice versa: if now you are in a more favorable conditions, then there is no need for you to take detours and extra efforts - the direct road is open. For example, if in order to start their own business, someone needed to spend a long time selecting a team of professionals, and you are already familiar with them and have experience in cooperation. At the same time, this person already had potential investors, and you have to launch a crowdfunding campaign - in this case, completely copying other people’s actions will be useless, at least in the early stages.

2. Point B

Where you expect to end up. There is no point in following someone who is moving in a completely different direction, even if at first you have some common part of the path. The illusion of “common point A” creates the impression that all further actions will be similar. This often happens in school and university groups, when students find themselves in the same conditions, and others strive to repeat the successful examples of certain people. But at certain stages you have to make your own choices, which sometimes require radically opposite actions. And then, for example, you put aside general textbooks, enroll in other courses, apply for completely different internship programs. Therefore, before you copy someone, decide on your own ultimate (or at least intermediate) goal so that you can clearly understand which option for achieving the goal is right for you and which is not.

3. Opportunity analysis

When listening or reading a particular success story, always analyze what exactly could help the person you are targeting, and what is also available to you: similar personal qualities, one city of residence, equally developed abilities in some area of ​​knowledge and skills in a certain area, etc. For example, you want to repeat a successful experience famous entrepreneur. He had developed the ability to communicate with people, negotiate, make sales - and you can say the same about yourself. Then you can, just like him, take over the main work of concluding deals and relationships with clients, delegating other tasks to employees.

4. Against the system

When everyone chooses to follow the “well-trodden path” and achieve mediocre results, it is the anti-examples that achieve success that attract all the attention. What if their experience is the most revealing? For example, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and created Facebook - maybe, following his example, you shouldn’t waste time on university, but start right away with something promising?

In such a situation, it is important to be able to figure out whether you are dealing with a rule or an exception. For example, if the decision to leave university is based only on isolated examples from others and, accordingly, on the assumption that “university is a waste of time, you need to study less and act more,” then as a result the person is deprived of the opportunity to gain important theoretical knowledge, which, perhaps they could help us achieve more in the future.

Sometimes it's better to pick up speed a little longer than to make a false start and start all over again. But if something really gets in the way in life, for example, you made the wrong choice of profession, then you really shouldn’t hold on, but rather focus on other ways to achieve what you want. The main thing is to take other people’s examples into account, not as a direct guide to action, and to weigh whether this or that option is acceptable in a particular case.

5. Not obvious reasons for success

When reading biographies of successful individuals, pay attention not only to what actions they took to achieve their goal. Analyze what is between the lines and what is not immediately apparent. For example, that the happy coincidence and key meetings in many success stories would not have happened if people had not worked on themselves, honing their skills, etc. Evaluate the story of a person comprehensively, taking into account all the components, both positive and negative. This is the only way you can understand what is suitable and applicable in your case.

What questions will you find answers to in this article:

· What type of benchmarking is right for your company?
· How To CEO organize benchmarking?
· Is it always necessary to focus on competitors?

Which benchmarking is right for your company?

There are many types of benchmarking: competitive, general, internal, strategic, functional. Which one should you choose? It all depends on what task the General Director sets.

Competitive benchmarking should be used if the CEO decides to compare the performance of his company with that of direct competitors. It must be said that Russian companies most often use this type of benchmarking. You can entrust the collection of information about competitors to marketing analysts. They will analyze competitors' products, their prices, business practices, survey consumers, and find out their opinions about competitors' products (services). Based on the collected data, it will be possible to conclude what actions of competitors led to success. Sometimes competitive intelligence methods are used to study competitors. However, competitive intelligence should not be equated with benchmarking.

An open, voluntary exchange of information is also possible - for example, within the framework of professional associations and associations. Readers may have a question: why does a company disclose information about itself? The fact is that it is prestigious to act as a standard. This increases investment attractiveness.

Strategic benchmarking is carried out when the CEO decides to develop new markets or launch New Product. In many sectors of the Russian economy, the market is still closed and unstructured. Its analysis is unlikely to allow developing a long-term strategy for the company. Therefore, to determine strategic priorities, one can study similar mature and structured markets that have developed in other countries. An example is the Russian distribution market. Today in Russia there are many small and medium-sized distribution companies that resell products from manufacturers to retailers. But an analysis of the world market shows that in Russia, like several decades ago in the West, retail chains working directly with suppliers. Therefore, many distribution companies are at the dying stage. They are being replaced by companies that provide qualified services in the field of logistics. There is also a chance to survive and remain in the market for specialized companies that engage in small deliveries - for example, delivering snacks to tents or supplying perishable goods (frozen foods, bread, flowers. It is not always profitable for “logistics” to engage in such segments, so for small companies there is a promising niche, but the scale of the business in this case is very limited.

Functional benchmarking is worth turning to when the CEO wants to compare the performance of certain functions(sales, purchasing, personnel management, etc.) with the effectiveness of similar functions in other companies, and not necessarily in the same industry. Functional benchmarking is used in all areas of the enterprise - in production, logistics, finance, personnel management, etc.

How to organize benchmarking

Step 1. Define the problem and select indicators for comparison. The main task is to formulate a problem, for the solution of which you will turn to the experience of other companies. You need to understand why there are gaps between the practices of your company and the market leaders. What is their advantage? Is it possible to catch up and do better than others?

History of benchmarking

The Japanese are considered the founders of benchmarking as a business technology, who learned to perfectly copy other people's achievements. In the 1950s, they began to carefully examine European and American goods and services, identifying their strengths and weak sides, and then released similar products at a lower price. At the same time, the Japanese successfully transferred technology and know-how from one business area to another.

In the West, benchmarking began to be actively used in the late 1970s. At this time the products Japanese companies began to displace American goods domestic market. American companies began to look for reasons for the sharp loss of their positions. Benchmarking was first carried out at Xerox Corporation by Robert Camp. Xerox began to lose in terms of copier sales Japanese company Fuji. To understand the reasons for the failures, Xerox top managers went on a long business trip to Japan. They studied not only the technical achievements of their colleagues, but also Japanese system labor organization, work with personnel, corporate culture. Leveraging this experience has enabled Xerox to reduce costs, increase productivity and improve customer service. Since then, benchmarking has become part of Xerox's business strategy.

Step 2. Selecting an object for comparison and collecting information. Having identified the problem, you need to find the right object for comparison. Who do you compare yourself to? The answer to this question depends on many factors. For example, the Irbit Motorcycle Plant, having undertaken reorganization, analyzed how the business of heavy motorcycle manufacturers was organized. There are only a few such enterprises in the world. Who to target? It turned out that we should focus on India: IMZ was seriously inferior even to Indian companies in terms of performance, and the world’s leading manufacturers generally found themselves in the sky: you can keep them in mind, but do not set the goal of “catching up” in the medium term.

Sources of information for benchmarking:

To obtain information about the activities of companies, you need:

· attend industry exhibitions, congresses, seminars, fairs;

· attract marketing experts, including consultants from industry research institutes;

· join professional associations, participate in conferences, communicate with colleagues in an informal setting;

Conduct industry and competitor research;

· interview clients;

· study Western websites public companies, where are located annual reports and other information for investors;

Step 3. Information analysis. The next stage is data analysis, as a result of which the General Director must obtain information, due to which a gap has formed between his company and the standard company. For example, in the case of IMZ, it turned out that, firstly, generalist workers worked at the Indian plant - they could perform large quantity operations. Due to this, downtime was reduced. Secondly, the Indian plant used more universal equipment. And, finally, it was placed more compactly, which reduced the cost of maintaining both the equipment itself and the structures.

Step 4. Decision making. Knowing the reasons why your company lags behind the standard company, you need to understand how to close the gap. Then you need to make a decision. For example, for a car repair service center, it would be important to recruit more qualified employees, make the work schedule of service centers more flexible, arrange timely delivery of components, etc.

However, blind copying is unacceptable. Each enterprise conducting benchmarking must understand that the information collected may confirm the futility of implementing any planned project due to the identified limitations. For example, there may not be qualified car mechanics in your region, or the remoteness of the service center may not allow for timely delivery of spare parts from the manufacturer.

And one more important point. In benchmarking, it is imperative to maintain a balance between the cost of implementing the solutions found and their potential benefits. Even small innovations can be unprofitable.

The entire benchmarking process is represented by four zones corresponding to four questions:

1. What is subject to benchmarking?

2. How to conduct benchmarking?

3. Who is the best?

4. How do the best businesses operate?

Zones 1 and 2 relate to your own enterprise, the other two zones - to the enterprise - the benchmarking partner.

Zone 1. What is subject to benchmarking? The activities that define the critical success factor should be presented. In other words, factors that directly affect customer satisfaction.

Zone 2. How to benchmark? The processes and methods underlying critical success factors are explored. The head of the company needs to answer the following questions:

· Is the process (technology) fixed?

· Who is my client?

· What are my client's expectations?

· Do employees understand the process or technology?

· Are the activities required to complete each subtask identified and included in the action plan?

Zone 3: Who is the best? When studying a benchmarking partner, you should focus not on the enterprise as such, but on the processes or technologies that are carried out on it.

The procedure is as follows:

· Search on own enterprise processes that may be subject to comparison (internal benchmarking.

· Search for processes to compare in the market your company serves ( competitive benchmarking.

· Search for processes to be compared in your business sector (functional benchmarking.

· Search for processes to be compared outside your industry (general benchmarking.

Zone 4: How do the best businesses operate? It is necessary to analyze the processes that allow achieving best results, and determine the reasons for the discrepancy between the data of your company and the reference company. Then you need to implement these processes at your enterprise. In this case it is necessary:

· clearly formulate the goal;

· determine what means will be used to achieve this goal;

· plan deadlines and resources.

What questions will you find answers to in this article?

• What type of benchmarking is right for your company?
• How can the General Director organize benchmarking?
• Is it always necessary to focus on competitors?

You will also read

• How Ralf Ringer and Nizhpharm companies conduct benchmarking
• What information does it collect about competitors’ activities?
• General Director of Irbitsky Motorcycle Plant LLC

When collective farmers in Soviet films showed off their achievements at agricultural exhibitions and visited each other to exchange best practices, this was not called benchmarking. But in essence it was exactly that. When Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev visited American farms and admired the corn harvest and milk yield, he was also involved in benchmarking.

In the most general sense, benchmarking is comparison with the best. Benchmarking helps improve business processes relatively quickly and at the lowest cost. It allows you to understand how leading companies operate and achieve the same or better results. The value of benchmarking is not only that it eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel. By carefully studying the achievements and mistakes of other companies, you can develop your own to the maximum effective model business.

Which benchmarking is right for your company?

There are many types of benchmarking: competitive, general, internal, strategic, functional. Which one should you choose? It all depends on what task the General Director sets.

Competitive benchmarking should be used if the General Director decides to compare the performance of his company with similar indicators of direct competitors. It must be said that Russian companies most often use this type of benchmarking. You can entrust the collection of information about competitors to marketing analysts. They will analyze competitors' products, their prices, business practices, survey consumers, and find out their opinions about competitors' products (services). Based on the collected data, it will be possible to conclude what actions of competitors led to success. Sometimes, to study competitors, they resort to competitive intelligence methods (for more details on competitive intelligence, see the article “How to find out the whole truth about competitors,” No. 2 - 2006). However, competitive intelligence should not be equated with benchmarking.

An open, voluntary exchange of information is also possible - for example, within professional associations. Readers may have a question: why does a company disclose information about itself? The fact is that it is prestigious to act as a standard. This increases the investment attractiveness of the company and allows you to lobby your interests at different levels. In addition, many General Directors are confident that if the company teaches someone, then it itself develops.

General Director speaks

The Nizhpharm company is one of the leading Russian pharmaceutical companies. Founded in 1919. Since January 2005, Nizhpharm has been part of the structure of the international pharmaceutical company Stada. Nizhpharm's product portfolio includes more than 100 generic and branded items medicines (own production and produced by Stada).

When solving some business problems, we pay attention to the experience of not only pharmaceutical companies, but also companies of other types of business. For example, our sales policy, which determines the relationship between discounts, deferred payment and volume of purchased products, is based on an analysis of the coffee business in the United States and Canada. For several years we could not build a sales policy that would minimize subjectivity in decision making. Different groups of distributors (regional, national and local) had their own conditions. Moreover, in each specific case, the discount could be adjusted taking into account the arguments (not always objective) of the distributors. We were not happy with this state of affairs. Our goal was to develop a policy that would provide equal rights to all distributors.

One Canadian businessman selling coffee came up with a system to effectively pricing policy and made a revolutionary offer to distributors. His competitors spent ten years saying that he was wrong, and then they themselves switched to his system. The example of the Canadian businessman inspired us, and within six months we were able to create our own distribution policy. It was launched in early 2004 and has not changed since then. This is an indicator that the solution found is optimal.

Sometimes it is useful for the General Director to pay attention to successful business solutions implemented in one of the structural divisions his company, and extend them to other services. It is called internal benchmarking. For example, you can compare the performance of the sales department and the purchasing department. In holdings, you can compare the same function (say, the work of marketing departments) at different enterprises. An example of the successful use of internal benchmarking is the experience of the St. Petersburg company Pervomaiskaya Zarya. Studying the work of its subsidiary Kurt Kellermann SPb LLC, the management of Pervomaiskaya Zarya discovered that they manage the purchase of raw materials well. In particular, subsidiary agreed with suppliers that she would purchase from them big discounts unredeemed remnants of fabrics (waste). As a result, the management of Pervomaiskaya Zarya took a number of similar measures to deal with wastewater.

Strategic benchmarking carried out when the CEO decides to develop new markets or release a new product. In many sectors of the Russian economy, the market is still closed and unstructured. Its analysis is unlikely to allow developing a long-term strategy for the company. Therefore, to determine strategic priorities, one can study similar mature and structured markets that have developed in other countries. An example is the Russian distribution market. Today in Russia there are many small and medium-sized distribution companies that resell products from manufacturers to retailers. But an analysis of the world market shows that in Russia, like several decades ago in the West, retail chains working directly with suppliers are rapidly developing. Therefore, many distribution companies are at the dying stage. They are being replaced by companies that provide qualified services in the field of logistics. Specialized companies that engage in small deliveries also have a chance to survive and remain on the market - for example, delivering snacks to tents or supplying perishable goods (frozen foods, bread, flowers). It is not always profitable for “logistics” to engage in such segments, so there is a promising niche for small companies, but the scale of the business in this case is very limited.

TO functional benchmarking It is worth contacting when the General Director wants to compare the effectiveness of certain functions (sales, purchasing, personnel management, etc.) with the effectiveness of similar functions in other companies, and not necessarily in the same industry. Functional benchmarking is used in all areas of the enterprise - in production, logistics, finance, personnel management, etc.

A practitioner tells

Anastasia Tatulova, Marketing Director at Ralf Ringer, Moscow

We also focus on very large Western manufacturers with a long history, such as Clarks, Mephisto. For example, our product line two years ago was 150 models, now it is 300. Dealers told us: “The Chinese bring 1000 models and sell a million pairs, but you want to sell a million pairs with only 150 models.” However, for me the Chinese are not role models. Therefore, we decided to compare our product line with that of Clarks. This company sells 40 million pairs of shoes with only 250 models. That is why, out of 500 models put up for the assortment council, we discard 40%, and begin selling the remaining collection that we are confident in.

How to organize benchmarking

Step 1. Define the problem and select indicators for comparison. The main task is to formulate a problem, for the solution of which you will turn to the experience of other companies. You need to understand why there are gaps between the practices of your company and the market leaders. What is their advantage? Is it possible to catch up and do better than others?

History of benchmarking

The Japanese are considered the founders of benchmarking as a business technology, who learned to perfectly copy other people's achievements. In the 1950s, they began to carefully research European and American products and services, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and then produce similar products at lower prices. At the same time, the Japanese successfully transferred technology and know-how from one business area to another.

In the West, benchmarking began to be actively used in the late 1970s. At this time, the products of Japanese companies began to displace American goods in the domestic market. American companies began to look for reasons for the sharp loss of their positions. Benchmarking was first carried out at Xerox Corporation by Robert Camp. Xerox began to lose in sales volumes of copiers to the Japanese company Fuji. To understand the reasons for the failures, Xerox top managers went on a long business trip to Japan. They studied not only the technical achievements of their colleagues, but also the Japanese labor organization system, work with personnel, and corporate culture. Leveraging this experience has enabled Xerox to reduce costs, increase productivity and improve customer service. Since then, benchmarking has become part of Xerox's business strategy.

Having chosen a problem, the CEO, together with marketing analysts or the development director, must decide on what indicators to compare. For example, if pharmaceutical company wants to develop no worse than its Western competitors, it needs investments in R&D and fixed assets. Accordingly, indicators for comparison can be the ratio of investments in R&D to the company's profit, as well as the ratio of sales to fixed assets.

In other cases, indicators for comparison may be revenue per seller, production profitability, etc. For example, the Irbit Motorcycle Plant (IMZ) compared itself with a similar manufacturer of heavy motorcycles in India - Royal Enfield. Both plants employed approximately 900 people. But the Irbit plant produced 1.5 thousand motorcycles per year, and the plant in India produced 22 thousand. Consequently, the number of motorcycles produced per person at IMZ was 1.6, and at Royal Enfield it was 24.4. That is, the labor productivity of an Indian worker turned out to be 15 times higher than that of a Russian worker. Question: due to what?

General Director speaks

Andrey Mladentsev, General Director of OJSC Nizhpharm, Nizhny Novgorod

At one time, we were concerned with the questions: how optimal is the ratio of sales and production costs in our company? Are our administrative and sales costs too high? How reasonable are our standards for raw material reserves and finished products? We obtained answers to these questions by conducting comparative analysis our indicators with similar indicators of other companies. It should be noted that it is useless to compare Nizhpharm with companies not from the pharmaceutical industry, because each industry is specific. We also decided not to make comparisons with Russian companies. Firstly, on pharmaceutical market V competition foreign firms are winning. Secondly, not all Russian companies are open.

In the pharmaceutical industry, there are companies with different business models: innovative companies, which have their own cost structure, and generic companies; Nizhpharm also belongs to the latter. We started benchmarking with the best companies generic type, which are located in Eastern Europe— Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic. As a result of benchmarking, we were able to determine the optimal type of business model for our company, an adequate percentage of the main expense items to sales, as well as the basic standards for working capital, inventories and assets.

Step 2. Selecting an object for comparison and collecting information. Having identified the problem, you need to find the right object for comparison. Who do you compare yourself to? The answer to this question depends on many factors. For example, the Irbit Motorcycle Plant, having undertaken reorganization, analyzed how the business of heavy motorcycle manufacturers was organized. There are only a few such enterprises in the world. Who to target? It turned out that we should focus on India: IMZ was seriously inferior even to Indian companies in terms of performance, and the world’s leading manufacturers generally found themselves in the sky: you can keep them in mind, but do not set the goal of “catching up” in the medium term.

Sources of information for benchmarking

To obtain information about the activities of companies, you need:

• attend industry exhibitions, congresses, seminars, fairs;
• attract marketing experts, including consultants from industry research institutes;
• join professional associations, participate in conferences, communicate with colleagues in an informal setting;
• conduct industry and competitor research;
• interview clients;
• study the websites of Western public companies, where annual reports and other information for investors are posted;
• study annual reports of open Russian companies;
• visit specialized websites of American associations (for example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC) is an independent federal agency whose tasks include regulating transactions with securities, monitoring compliance with laws and regulations of exchanges and the financial market , protecting investors from fraud. Commission rules require full disclosure of all company information and securities before the conclusion of the transaction)).

A practitioner tells

Anastasia Tatulova, Marketing Director at Ralf Ringer, Moscow

One source of information is industry exhibitions. We visit them and communicate with colleagues. For example, two years ago we were interested in the issue of building a company structure. We had problems with interaction between the marketing, design, and production departments... The company grew very quickly, and it was difficult to understand where the responsibility of one employee ends and the responsibility of another begins. We talked at exhibitions with colleagues from Europe and China, learned how their design department is structured, where product development ends and implementation begins.

General Director speaks

Andrey Mladentsev, General Director of OJSC Nizhpharm, Nizhny Novgorod

I have a negative attitude towards the exchange of experience in the style of Soviet times, when a delegation from some enterprise comes and just looks at what’s going on. Each company has its own set of factors that allow or do not allow it to develop. The delegation can come and study our experience, but there are no guarantees that it will be implemented later. It turns out that I and other company employees are wasting time aimlessly. I am ready to exchange experiences with my business partner, because this will help mutual understanding and improve our joint activities. But if tomorrow a delegation from a metallurgical plant comes to me to learn experience in the field of personnel management, I will most likely refuse. Because I don't understand why.

I am also not a supporter of attending conferences and participating in inter-industry associations where representatives of companies from different areas business. I think it’s better to spend time reading books, and if you communicate, then it’s substantive and substantive. However, despite this, I am an ardent supporter of intra-industry cooperation. Three years ago we created an association of Russian pharmaceutical manufacturers. There are currently 13 members. We united because we are close in spirit and believe that joint activities bring more results than confrontation. We are happy to exchange information, and not only General Directors communicate, but also department heads. This helps a lot when we are faced with some local problem in which I, as the General Director, may be less competent than the line manager.

Our enterprises are currently implementing International system quality. Since Nizhpharm was the first to implement such a system, we are happy to disclose information to other members of the association. We are interested in Russian quality standards pharmaceutical industry increased.

Step 3. Information analysis. The next stage is data analysis, as a result of which the General Director must obtain information, due to which a gap has formed between his company and the reference company. For example, in the case of IMZ, it turned out that, firstly, generalist workers worked at the Indian plant - they could perform a greater number of operations. Due to this, downtime was reduced. Secondly, the Indian plant used more universal equipment. And, finally, it was placed more compactly, which reduced the cost of maintaining both the equipment itself and the structures.

Benchmarking

In Japan, USA and others Western countries Benchmarking programs evolve with state support. There are industry benchmarking associations there, a kind of “dating bureau” that were created specifically for finding benchmarking partners (See links to association websites in the “Useful Internet Resources” section). It is believed that thanks to such an exchange of experience, the country's economy as a whole benefits.

In 1994 it was created Global network benchmarking (Global Benchmarking Network, GBN). Today it unites benchmarking centers from 20 countries (USA, Germany, Italy, UK, etc.). Russia became a full member of the GBN in the fall of 2004 (the All-Russian Quality Organization joined it).

Membership in any of the benchmarking associations is not very expensive. Thus, membership in the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) for a small company will cost 1,350 euros per year. Unfortunately, almost all available resources are English-language, and potential benchmarking partners within these clubs are foreign companies.

Another example. While conducting benchmarking, a car repair service center found that the average repair time per item at the benchmark company was three times less than theirs. What caused this advantage? After analyzing the information, the management of the service center found that the reference company has more staff highly qualified, and the company works not only on weekdays, but also on weekends.

Step 4. Decision making. Knowing the reasons why your company lags behind the standard company, you need to understand how to close the gap. Then you need to make a decision. For example, for a car repair service center, it would be important to recruit more qualified employees, make the work schedule of service centers more flexible, arrange timely delivery of components, etc.

However, blind copying is unacceptable. Each enterprise conducting benchmarking must understand that the information collected may confirm the futility of implementing any planned project due to the identified limitations. For example, there may not be qualified car mechanics in your region, or the remoteness of the service center may not allow for timely delivery of spare parts from the manufacturer.

And one more important point. In benchmarking, it is imperative to maintain a balance between the cost of implementing the solutions found and their potential benefits. Even small innovations can be unprofitable.

General Director speaks

Ilya Khait, General Director of Irbitsky Motorcycle Plant LLC, Sverdlovsk region

Irbit Motorcycle Plant is the only plant in Russia producing heavy motorcycles. Today, most of the products are exported to the USA and Europe. Ural motorcycles are well known on the world market. There are several clubs of Ural owners in Europe and the USA. King Abdullah II of Jordan owns several Urals.

We are studying innovate experience other companies for two reasons. Firstly, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others than from your own (Bismarck noticed this). Secondly, to become competitive, you need to be good at something better than competitors. Therefore, before setting clear goals for yourself, you need to study in as much detail as possible how competing companies are structured, what business model they use, what their indicators are, etc.

Unfortunately, we have practically nothing to borrow from Russian companies. China and India, on the contrary, are very interesting. The pace at which companies in these countries are developing and their desire to attract you as a client is simply amazing. In Russia they don’t work like this yet, and this is very sad. So for us, the experience of our foreign colleagues is most important: these are our main competitors. Naturally, first of all, we try to study the leading motorcycle companies, such as KTM, BMW, Ducati, in as much detail as possible. I would not say that they are willing to share their experience. For example, we were able to visit KTM factories, but I can’t say that we got the opportunity to study them in detail. So you have to process a large amount of information in order to extract something useful. There are especially many problems with finding the numbers that interest us: labor productivity, number of personnel, etc. It can be interesting to analyze and bad experience. For example, it was useful to understand the history of the fall of Indian.

We also study the experience of companies that have solved or are solving problems similar to ours, namely, entering and expanding their presence in the markets of developed countries (in particular, the US market). Therefore, for example, we are interested in the experience of Hyundai. In a sense, examples such as Hyundai also provide a psychotherapeutic effect - after all, they did it!

In addition to direct competitors, we are also interested in the automotive industry, especially those companies that offer a “niche” product, such as Subaru. We also study the experience of enterprises that promote not just a product, but a lifestyle (for example, Starbucks).

We also study the construction in great detail dealer networks various motorcycle brands (number of dealers, their distribution across the country, buyer demographics, economic parameters, ordering system, warranty systems, incentives, etc.). This comparison allows us to more clearly formulate the vision of our own dealer network.

We collect both quantitative and qualitative information. For example, we study competitors’ products down to the smallest detail, down to what fasteners they use. This is important in order to bring our products into line with industry standards - we, unfortunately, have been divorced from world experience for several decades. We also compare our labor productivity with the corresponding indicator of the world's leading companies. Although it is difficult to obtain information (mostly open sources are used - company reports, publications in the industry press), it is very useful, on its basis it is possible to formulate tasks in terms of reducing the number of personnel and restructuring the company.

Cheat sheet for the General Director

Sergey Pukovich, Director of the Consulting Center of the Institute of Privatization and Management, Minsk (Belarus)

Consulting center of the Institute of Privatization and Management (IPM) exists since 2000. Engaged in consulting in the field of marketing and strategy, assessing the investment attractiveness of projects, conducting marketing research. Main clients: representative offices of Sanofi-Aventis (France - Germany), Hygiene Kinetics (Ola!) brand (Russia), Syngenta (Switzerland), ZTE (China), World Bank, Pierre Fabre company (France), Belarusian enterprises "Milavitsa", Brewery "Olivaria".

Digital Equipment Corporation has developed a structure for subject-oriented benchmarking. It is reflected in the so-called benchmarking template (see. diagram). It is useful for the General Director to use this template as a kind of reminder or model that can be used as a guide when benchmarking your company.

The entire benchmarking process is represented by four zones corresponding to four questions:

1. What is subject to benchmarking?
2. How to benchmark?
3. Who is the best?
4. How do the best businesses operate?

Zones 1 and 2 relate to your own enterprise, the other two zones - to the enterprise - the benchmarking partner.

Zone 1. What is subject to benchmarking? The activities that define the critical success factor should be presented. In other words, factors that directly affect customer satisfaction.

Zone 2. How to benchmark? The processes and methods underlying critical success factors are explored. The head of the company needs to answer the following questions:

• Is the process (technology) fixed?
• Who is my client?
• What are my client's expectations?
• Do employees understand the process or technology?
• Are the activities required to complete each subtask identified and included in the action plan?

Zone 3: Who is the best? When studying a benchmarking partner, you should focus not on the enterprise as such, but on the processes or technologies that are carried out on it.

The procedure is as follows:

• Searching for processes in your own enterprise that can be compared (internal benchmarking).
• Finding processes to compare in the market your company serves (competitive benchmarking).
• Search for processes to be compared in your business sector (functional benchmarking).
• Finding processes to compare outside your industry (general benchmarking).

Zone 4: How do the best businesses operate? You need to analyze the processes that allow you to achieve the best results and determine the reasons for the discrepancies between the data of your company and the reference company. Then you need to implement these processes at your enterprise. In this case it is necessary:

• clearly formulate the goal;
• determine what means will be used to achieve this goal;
• plan deadlines and resources.