Customers may be willing to share some of their insights as to how their other suppliers compare with you. Again, it isn't necessary that you get information about direct competitors. Keep your focus at the process level and there will seldom be any issues of confidentiality. An advantage to identifying potential benchmarking partners through your customers is that you will have a referral that will make it easier for you to start the partnership. Another source for detailed information on companies is academic research.
Companies often allow universities access to detailed information for research purposes.
While the published research usually omits reference to the specific companies involved, it often provides comparisons and detailed analysis of what separates the best from the others. Such information, provided by experts whose work is subject to rigorous peer review, will often save you thousands of hours of work. After a list of potential candidates is compiled, the next step is to choose the best three to five targets. This occurs as a result of a clearer understanding of your organization's key quality characteristics and critical success factors and an improved knowledge of the marketplace and other players. This knowledge and the resulting actions tremendously strengthen an organization.