Examining the role of best practices benchmarking and their relationship to the competitiveness of the organization

Benchmarking is considered to be the method of identifying the overall performance of the services, products, and processes of any organization against some other organization for remaining best in the similar business industry. Benchmarking is known to be the process of comparing the crucial metrics of operations with the other similar organization. Various kinds of organizations are utilizing this method of benchmarking for becoming more competitive in the present industry. Noticing the performance of other organizations will help an organization to identify their weak points and in which section they are lagging or underperforming. The business organizations also get the opportunity for identifying various kinds of ways with the help of which they are able to enhance their self-operations without developing a new business plan. Thus, it can be said that benchmarking helps in accelerating changes within the business operations with the utilization of innovative benchmark measures.

The chosen organization for the research is Apple Inc. The research primarily concentrates on examining the role of best benchmarking practice and their relationship to the competitiveness of the organization. The report then focuses on the development of an effective plan related to best practices benchmarking which can be applied to the chosen organization. The discussion then continues with the evaluation of the organizational performance in relation to the best practice benchmarks thereby applying those benchmarks for establishing the organizational improvements. The report concentrates on the analysis of the role of qualitative and quantitative tools that helps in supporting the improvements of crucial processes within the chosen organization followed by the evaluation of the organizational culture, team structures and effective management of the human resources in the chosen organization. The report then focuses on the recommendations for the future actions by which the organizational culture, team structures, and effective management of the human resources contribute towards the achievement of the organizational best practices. Finally, the report ends with a conclusion.

During the research, it has been identified that the best practices benchmarking is regarded as a valuable method for the business organizations to enhance their operational effectiveness as well as efficiency. Best practices benchmarking serves the role of providing the organizations with true facts regarding their operational rate and provides several ways for improving the business operations in an effective manner. Best practices are regarded as the process which identifies the superior performance on the basis of measurement done via specific metric. Hislop, Bosua and Helms (2018) showed that there is a close relationship between the best practices benchmarking and competitiveness of the organization. The reason behind the fact is that the best practice benchmarking is considered as a straightforward method that generally utilizes the already used organizational metrics for tracking the overall processes. It has been found that the best practice benchmarking can be utilized in substitution of Six Sigma Project.

Development of an effective plan related to best practices benchmarking which can be applied to the chosen organization

Balamurugan and Poongodi (2016) stated that the primary objective of benchmarking is about understanding and evaluating the present position of any business organization in association with the best practices thereby identifying several areas as well as means based on the performance improvement. For analyzing the competitiveness of the organizations it can be seen that benchmarking investigates even outside any particular organization, business, region, country or industry. This is the way through which benchmarking helps the organization to explain their business operations in addition to excellent performance. Moreover, it is necessary to keep in mind that only by beating or meeting the competition in the present competitive market is not going to provide necessary improvements for remaining competitive (Xu & Yang, 2014). The business organizations are required to achieve quantum improvements in various kinds of metrics including reliability, quality, responsiveness, and productivity for reducing the costs of the products and services thereby keeping the customers satisfied.

According to the research, it has been identified that benchmarking is suitable for those organizations that are both survivors and winners but not for the loser organizations. It can be seen that the process of benchmarking concentrates on comparing the procedures and practices of the best organization for identifying various kinds of ways through which the organizations can enhance their performance and business operations. Thus, with the help of benchmarking new goals and standards can be set up for better satisfying the requirements of the customers based on product, service, cost, and quality (Attiany, 2014). These factors give extra benefit for the organizations to include the value for their customers thereby classifying themselves from the other competitors.   

The best practice benchmarking is identified as the common tool for obtaining competitive insight thereby providing evidence oriented views of the organizational performance throughout the organizational and product lifecycle. The primary idea of benchmarking had arisen for the identification of better practices which could be implemented for improving the overall performance of the organization (Adewunmi, Omirin & Koleoso, 2016). Researchers have found that the best practices benchmarking can be obtained with the comparison of a performance or practice of an organization in comparison with some other organization that has performed quite better. The benchmarking team gathers data from different kinds of benchmarking partners and then utilizes those changes that are required to improve the overall performance of their personal organization. This is the way through which an organization is going to achieve better performance or practice to identify the best practices thereby adapting those practices.

Evaluation of the organizational performance in relation to the best practice benchmarks thereby applying those benchmarks for establishing the organizational improvements

According to the research, it has been identified that there are various kinds of benchmarking present in the business environment. The list of benchmarking is as follows:

1. Internal benchmarking: The internal benchmarking is utilized when any organization have established best practices and are required to share them. The internal benchmarking is required when the comparable industries are not available in the market.
2. Competitive benchmarking: The aggressive benchmarking is used when any association is required to assess their situation inside the association. All in all, aggressive benchmarking is used when an association attempts to distinguish the objectives of the administration execution (Lymberopoulos et al., 2015).
3. Process benchmarking: It helps in investigating the overall business process of an organization. The main aim of process benchmarking is about the identification of the best practices from other benchmark organization.
4. Strategic benchmarking: During the time of analyzing and identifying the high rated performance then this strategic benchmarking can be utilized. This kind of benchmarking is used when an organization wants to perform business outside their own industry.
5. Performance benchmarking: The performance benchmarking can be done by comparing the services and products against the other target organizations.
6. Financial benchmarking: It involves performing several financial analysis for accessing the overall productivity and competitiveness of the organizations (Broome & Quirk, 2015).
7. Product benchmarking: The product benchmarking concentrates on the improvement of the products which involves reverse engineering for finding the strengths and weaknesses of the products of competitors.
8. Functional benchmarking: The functional benchmarking concentrates on any single function for improving the overall business operations of the organization.

An effective plan for the best practice benchmarking can be used by Apple Inc. in improving their business performance thereby enhancing the productivity and profit rate. The plan for the best practice benchmarking involves four different phases which are as follows:

1. Planning phase: This is the first phase of best practice benchmarking that can be used by Apple Inc. During this particular stage there is a necessity for selection of operations that are needed to be benchmarked following the development of a team of benchmarking executives. The benchmarking partners can be identified by researching on the information resources for best practices, raking the potential organizations, selecting the final organizations, and finally, it is necessary to understand the guidelines for benchmarking in order to maintain the ethical conduct.
2. Doing phase: In the doing phase primarily it is necessary to determine the plan for data collection. Then it is required to gather and analyze the data followed by determining the performance pitfalls as well as strengths. Furthermore, Apple Inc. is required to analyze the performance pitfalls and strengths thereby producing a benchmarking report (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
3. Acting phase: The action phase involves the development of the action plan for Apple Inc. that can be implemented. Then, it is required to communicate with the action plan, execution of the action plan, and recalibrating the benchmarks.
4. Tracking phase: The final phase for this effective plan is the tracking phase. In this phase, it is required to review the overall effectiveness of the implementation of best practices followed by modification of the action plan for making improvement in the business process of Apple Inc. Finally, it is necessary to monitor the method of improving the business operations (Stoneking & Curet, 2014).

Goetsch and Davis (2014) stated that there are various kinds of approaches present for measuring and evaluating the organizational performance with respect to the best practice benchmarks. Furthermore, these benchmarks can be applied to Apple Inc. for establishing their overall organizational improvements. The first benchmark that can be applied for Apple Inc. is about the evaluation of the financial benchmarking associated with the return on assets and profits of the organization. The second benchmark that can be applied is a determination of the performance related to products and services that are present in the industry or marketplace which includes volumes of sales and market share. The third benchmark that can be applied to Apple Inc. is regarding the determination of return value that is associated with the investors or shareholders which includes total shareholder return and added economic value (Grant, 2016). According to the research, it can be said that Apple Inc. is going to be on the right track if the net profits for the organization increase on yearly basis. These factors are going to determine that the organization has the capacity for reaching their financial requirements as well as targets.

Moore et al., (2015) showed that the qualitative and quantitative tools play a crucial role in supporting the improvements of the important processes within Apple Inc. thereby enhancing the organizational performance and productivity. The quantitative tools utilize numbers and measurements of crucial processes in Apple Inc. through quantitative methods are quite easier as they are associated with the countable objects (Ammons, 2014). The quantitative methods can be utilized by Apple Inc. for comparing their similar products, management, and control. The statistical data can be delivered easily with the help of quantitative data and it can be processed in an automatic manner. Another advantage that can be obtained by the quantitative tools is the ease of integration with respect to the systems present in Apple Inc. which can cover several other benchmarking indicators (Jahan, Edwards & Bahraminasab, 2016).

The utilization of the qualitative tools involves different types of techniques that includes interviews, schemas, discussions, questionnaires and so on (Lewis, 2015). The results that are obtained through qualitative tools are much subjective and are quite difficult to process which requires more attention during the time of analysis. The qualitative tools can be utilized by Apple Inc. in such situations where there is a requirement of better system understanding and during the time of complexity involved in the business processes (O’brien et al., 2014).

Analysis of the role of qualitative and quantitative tools in supporting the improvements of crucial processes within the chosen organization

According to the research, it has been identified that the organizational culture of Apple Inc. is considered to be the crucial factor for the success of their organization (Arocha, 2017). Researchers have found that the organizational culture of an organization helps in determining the capabilities for supporting the changes, strategies, and innovative policies. Based on the case studies of Apple Inc. it has been found that the employees working in Apple Inc. are integrated and developed effectively into the organizational culture for facilitating rapid innovation within the organization (Meyer, 2017). These kinds of innovations can be observed on the basis of their manufactured products such as the iPad, Apple watch, and iPhone.

The team structure or the organizational structure of Apple Inc. is considered to be the factor that helps in the successful innovation of the organization. The team structure of Apple Inc. helps in creating various kinds of opportunities for the overall business growth of their organization (Yin, 2017). The organizational structure of Apple Inc. follows a traditional hierarchy and the success of the organization is associated with innovation as well as leadership that has been performed by Steve Jobs.

The management of human resources involves various kinds of factors such as recruitment of the employees, benefits, and remuneration, and explaining the job responsibilities. Singh and Kaur (2016) showed that the management of human resources is regarded as the formal process or system can be carried out for managing the employees effectively within the business organization. Apple Inc. has managed to implement the best approaches to manage their existing employees and the factors associated with human resource management in Apple Inc. are as follows:

1. Recognition: Apple Inc. has managed to create fellows program in the year 1995 for recognizing the most successful and hardworking employees within the organization.
2. Recruitment: Apple Inc. concentrates on hiring people on the basis of their computer related knowledge. It can be seen that the management team of Apple Inc. hires only those employees who are fit with their organizational culture and not by noticing the experiences of the candidates (Piao & Kleiner, 2015).
3. Employee compensation: Apple Inc. tries to offer various kinds of benefits for all the employees working in their organization and the method of providing compensation to the employees is hugely competitive in nature.
4. Equal opportunity: Apple Inc. tries to promote organizational diversity thereby providing equal opportunities to all the employees working with them.

After the analysis of the report, it can be recommended that the identified strengths of Apple Inc. are required to be used for addressing the weaknesses of the organization. The organization can utilize their own strengths for exploiting the opportunities thereby expanding their distribution network. It is recommended for Apple to use the strong brand image as well as rapid processes of innovations for the successful development of the products and services followed by the launching of new product lines (Smithson, 2017). Apple Inc. is required to increase their sales volume with the launching of innovative products thereby inaugurating various stores with the help of streamlining production. The primary stakeholders of Apple Inc. are customers, competitors, investors, employees, and communities. Forgetting achievement in the organizational best practices it is necessary for Apple Inc. to treat the stakeholders in the best way as they are responsible for the success and growth of the organization.

Evaluation of the organizational culture, team structures, and effective management of human resources in the chosen organization

For maintaining the organizational culture it is necessary for Apple Inc. to appoint employees belonging to different races without following the act of racism. This method is going to build a better organizational culture within Apple Inc. Moreover, to maintain the organizational structure of Apple Inc. it is necessary for them to shift their values more on the employees as compared to the customers for increasing the productivity of the organization (Arocha, 2017). It can be seen that further changes in the current organizational structure of Apple Inc. are going to provide the organization with improved capabilities in several areas of creative and rapid innovation as well as designing.

Depending upon the human resource management of Apple Inc. it can be recommended that the organization is required to work in a collaborative manner with various kinds of reputable universities across the globe for creating their own potential network. This particular strategy will be beneficial for attracting the best talents in the technical market with young minds. Bailey et al., (2018) stated that Apple Inc. is required to know that what type of nonfinancial and financial benefits are being offered by their competitors like Nokia, Samsung, and HTC in order to extend their own value proposition. Finally, the HR managers are required to implement various kinds of human resource policies for approving a collaborative culture.

Conclusion

After the analysis of the overall research, it can be concluded that benchmarking is regarded as the process of comparing the crucial elements of operations with the other similar organization. It has been analyzed that best practices benchmarking serves the function of providing the organizations with true information regarding their operational rate and provides various kinds of ways for improving the business operations in an effective manner. In order to analyze the competitiveness of the organizations, it can be seen that benchmarking investigates even outside any particular organization, business, region, country or industry. Moreover, it has been found that the benchmarking team gathers data from several benchmarking partners and then utilizes those changes that are required to develop the overall performance of their personal organization. The list of benchmarking that are being found includes internal benchmarking, competitive benchmarking, process benchmarking, strategic benchmarking, performance benchmarking, financial benchmarking, product benchmarking, and functional benchmarking. After the research it has been found that the plan associated with best practice benchmarking consists of four different phases including planning phase, doing phase, acting phase, and tracking phase. The quantitative methods can be utilized by Apple Inc. for comparing their similar products, management, and control while the qualitative tools can be utilized by Apple Inc. in such situations where there is need of better system understanding and during the time of complexity involved in the business processes. According to the case study of Apple Inc., it has been found that the employees working in Apple Inc. are integrated and developed effectively into the organizational culture for facilitating rapid innovation within the organization. The researchers noticed that the team structure of Apple Inc. helps in creating various kinds of opportunities for the overall business growth of their organization. Apple Inc. has managed to implement the best approaches to manage their existing employees with the help of their innovative HRM. Finally, various recommendations are being given for getting achievement in the organizational best practices of Apple Inc.

Recommendations for future actions to achieve organizational best practices

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