Define the term benchmarking?

in simple terms : to compare yourself to and understand the difference between you and the best performers in the category. 

Benchmarking is comparing. In business sense, it is the process of comparing (your) business's element to those of others (mostly best competitors) using certain metrics and applying to specific dimensions or business processes.

Benchmarking is a continuous, systematic process for evaluating products, services and work processes.

It is an ongoing process that entails quantitative and qualitative measurement of the difference between company's performance of an activity and the performance of the best in the world or in the industry. It involves continuously evaluating the practices of best in class organization and adapting company processes to incorporate the best of these practices.

BENCH MARKING is a standard set by either your company or brand leader, 

Benchmarking refers to the  comparison of an organization's practices and performance against those of others. It seeks to identify standards, or "best practices," to apply in measuring and improving performance.

it's manily a way of gauging your performance by comparing it to either industry averages or to the rule of thump (industry best practices). you need to compare your performance to a very similar organization or product. If your product is new and no similar products are available, then you may need to implement Analogy (partial comparison) rather than Benchmarking.

 

It is a test to compare performance,most of the trades will develop thier own benchmark test which they will use to review class of products.

Benchmark is Standard from my point of view. Its class and it is up to us to keep such class and standard ongoing. It creates good clients to approach you as an individual and as you working for a company and as a company itself. Benchmark can increase global eye towards a company. Everyone one loves to associate themselves with people that perludes quantity and quality in their way of working as a matter of standards.

Benchmarking is a quality improvement tool that identifies: What you're doing ?How you're doing it?How others do it?How well you're doing it in reference to measures?What and how to improve?

Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other industries. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and processes of those studied (the "targets") to one's own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful.