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8/28/2003 Posted by Kathleen Rainwater

I received several recommendations:

http://www.benchmarkingreports.com/
"They provide benchmarking and best practice reports for a variety of industries and focus on a variety of areas (accounting, customer service, knowledge management, etc...). You do have to pay a fee for the reports. If I remember correctly, some fees are quite small while others tend to be quite expensive. I downloaded a few reports for $2 to $5 a piece looking for info on what other companies do in the area of knowledge management and it was helpful. I didn't get a lot of detail (I'm guessing this is because they were lower priced reports) but it was enough for my purposes. I just needed to get some basic examples of what has worked for other organizations in our clients' industry."

The American Productivity and Quality Center
[from the APQC web site] An internationally recognized resource for process and performance improvement, APQC helps organizations adapt to rapidly changing environments, build new and better ways to work, and succeed in a competitive marketplace. APQC works with its member organizations to identify best practices, discover effective methods of improvement, broadly disseminate findings, and connect individuals with one another, and the knowledge, training, and tools they need to succeed.

Best Practices LLC: http://www.best-in-class.com/
"You can either search their benchmarking reports (for lengthier stuff) or their Best Practice Database for detailed, less costly, shorter information."

Additional sources included:

"This web site from a Stuttgart-based German University contains links to PDF case studies of those they 'best practice' companies worldwide (i.e., ABN-AMBRO, Diesel jeans)"
http://www.wi-im.uni-koeln.de/cebusnet/bpc.htm

"And this web site, http://www.thebestpractice.com/, contains case studies on best IT, e-marketing and e-biz companies."

Some helpful advice:

"Best practice companies change year to year, decade to decade, industry to industry, ethical scandal to ethical scandal, fad to fad. For perspective on best practices, I sometimes re-read Tom Peter's classic, "Search for Excellence": some of the companies in this book are still tops in their fields, others aren't. GE, Gateway, Microsoft, H-P and IBM are all still considered as top benchmarked companies. Best practice companies consistently go with the flow, delivering new & improved (albeit sometimes flawed) products that stand the tests of time worldwide."

"I do searches on "best practices" and benchmarking in HBR and Sloan's review. It's also interesting to Google search for syllabus or "recommended reading" and "best practice" or benchmark and limit your search to a respected business school."