Benchmarking is a powerful tool that can help a shared services organization evaluate its current strengths and weaknesses, suggest opportunities for improvement, and provide insight on leading practices that can help effect those improvements. Metrics benchmarking allows shared services organizations to make meaningful comparisons with their peers, and practice benchmarking gives shared services organizations insight on how to act on those comparisons to boost their own performance. By using appropriate benchmarks to compare a shared services organization’s performance and practices with those of others, identify gaps in performance, uncover and implement leading practices, and monitor and measure progress, shared services leaders can guide their organizations toward greater optimization and better long-term results.

Beth Thiebault, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, offers insights into how benchmarking can improve performance as a contributing author in Chapter 13  of the IHRIM Press 2006 book, Common Sense: Shared Services for Human Resources, edited by Karen V. Beaman, and is available on Amazon.com. Reprinted with permission from the publisher, IHRIM Journal.