Benchmarking - Xerox and IBM Corporations - Research Paper Example

The paper "Benchmarking - Xerox and IBM Corporations" is a perfect example of a business research paper. The business operates within an external environment that is characterized by various unique opportunities and threats. A business entity also has its own internal environment comprised of distinct strengths and weaknesses. The business environment dynamics are increasing at a faster pace. The combination of these dynamics and the emergence of globalization has called for the creation of strategies, tools and methodologies to deal with these issues in the organizations. The economy is rapidly experiencing changes. In the contemporary economy, mass production and consumption of goods and services no longer form the basis of the economic order (Anand & Kodali 2008, p. 257). Moreover, competition, including global competition has become intense and an organization should perform better than its competitors in order to realize above-average performance. It is therefore prudent for a company to monitor the operations of its competitors and attempt to anticipate its actions and reactions. In this way, it is behaving strategically (Prasnikar, Debeljak & Ahcan 2005, p. 257). From time to time, an organization seeks as much information as possible from its main competitor and other competitors. This information is included in its decisions. In improving the performance of the business, a business enterprise also studies information about the performance of other companies. In general, this is what is known as benchmarking.

Background

The development of benchmarking is thought to have begun in the 1950s but was made popular by the Xerox and IBM Corporations. It is believed that Japanese businesses started carrying out benchmarking studies in the 1950s (Kozak 2004, p. 11). They accomplished this by visiting western countries and studying their business practices in order to transfer them and their technology to their own businesses. The chronological order regarding the systematic development of benchmarking has been provided by many authors. The consensus that can be pointed out is that benchmarking was applied for the first time in the 1950s (Kozak 2004, p. 11).