What Is Consortium Benchmarking?

Plan, Collect, Analyze, Adapt.

The four phases of APQC's award-winning benchmarking model result in rich quantitative data as well as in-depth qualitative case studies. Though your organization can undertake its own benchmarking project at any time, you'll find that when it comes to time, cost, and quality, there's strength in numbers.

APQC gathers together a group of organizations that are interested in benchmarking a specific topic. We use input from these organizations (the study sponsors) to design our data-gathering tools--the detailed questionnaire, a metric survey of performance and practices, and the site visit guide, a list of qualitative questions to be answered by organizations with world-class performance in the study area. These exemplars are known as best-practice partners.

Best-practice partner candidates are nominated by APQC (based on secondary research and firsthand experiences) and the study sponsors. We then contact and screen the candidates to determine which organizations have the best qualifications and are willing to participate. Study sponsors then select five organizations to be studied as best-practice partners.

Over the course of approximately two months, best-practice partners host site visits (whether in person or via Web conference) wherein they explain their successful practices and share their lessons learned. After the site visits, the APQC team records the information in the form of case studies.

During this time, partners and sponsors are also completing the detailed questionnaire and submitting their responses to the APQC team.

APQC, in partnership with external subject matter experts, analyzes both the metric and qualitative data to produce key findings (best practices). At the study-concluding knowledge transfer session, participants receive a copy of the final report and enjoy presentations from subject matter experts and best-practice partners.

Many particpants report that the greatest value of consortium benchmarking is the ability to network with and learn from other professionals who face the same challenges within their organizations.

Learn more about our current consortium studies.