Two, scheduled progress reviews in increments large enough to see results but small enough so people do not forget about the task at hand. Three, rewards for successful implementation. Four, plans for contingencies and corrective actions in the event that things do not go as planned. Five, plans for periodic reviewing the benchmarked activities. Competitive benchmarking is the most difficult form of benchmarking because target companies are not usually interested in helping their competitors.
Data gathering is made much more difficult when the target company is a competitor.
They do not want to be studied and may go to great lengths to stop one from doing so. Competitive benchmarking means measuring ones functions, processes, activities, products, or services against those of competitors. The key is to improve these processes to make them the best in the class. If not the best, then at least better than the competitors. An organization needs to make a list of what they want to know about its competition.