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Benchmarking with international partners: an interview with Robert Camp Interview by James Nelson

obert Camp is a leading authority on benchmarking and its use to obtain best practice knowledge and superior performance.

Based in Ithaca, New York, he is the Principal of the Best Practice Institute, an international research, education and consultancy organization focused on the capture, exchange and adoption of worldwide best practices through benchmarking. Often referred to as “the father of benchmarking,” Camp spent 23 years at Xerox Corporation where he was responsible for expanding and intensifying benchmarking in all Xerox units, and directing the internal Xerox network charged with ensuring that customer satisfaction and business results improved through incorporation of best practices in products, services and business processes. As the Xerox representative, Camp helped establish the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse in Houston, Texas, and he also currently serves as President of the Global Benchmarking Network, an affiliation of 20 benchmarking competency centres around the world. His seminal book, Benchmarking: The Search for Industry Best Practices that Lead to Superior Performance has been published in 14 languages.

JN: Do benchmarking teams within international organizations typically use a different approach than teams in US domestic companies? Robert Camp: Whenever I talk to overseas audiences there is always a concern about how people will share information. The question is “how will people get comfortable sharing information?” because many people believe that is not something people in overseas organizations are happy doing. Part of the concern stems from the fact that they perceive their organizations as being very sparse with the kinds of data we might find in the United States. There is a lot of public information we can tap into in the US which they see as not available to them. JN: Does this perception exist in any particular countries or overseas in general? Robert Camp: I think it exists in general, however it is more accentuated in some places than in others. For example, the perception in Europe is perhaps less strong than in countries in Asia-Pacific, where it is less strong than in Latin America. These are, to some extent, myths. One of the things I do is to encourage them to discuss among themselves – in a team

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environment – ways in which they can share information and what data sources are available to them. They always come up with ways that are essentially localized. But, in fact, there are ways to share information and there are extensive data. It is just that they have to become acquainted with what those local ways and sources are. Take Singapore, for example. When you go there, people say, “there is no benchmarking being done here,” and they are reluctant to share information. However, after we had been there a little while and done some probing, we found there were several benchmarking common interest groups, a consortia of companies that have come together to look at a particular topic. People were quite amazed to find that was the case. A lot of this, of course, has been initiated by multinational companies through their local operating units in countries overseas. These operating units learn about the benchmarking approach being used in the US through their parent. Then either a manager takes that knowledge to their local entity and wants to get it started, or they have somebody come over from the parent company and talk to managers and perhaps even train a portion of the organization about how to do benchmarking. That is often how it gets started. When we work with these teams overseas, we often find benchmarking has already been launched in that area. In cases where this is not true, the teams usually discover ways of sharing information after they give it some thought. I grew up in Latin America. I can sympathize with the fact that there are different ways of conducting business in different countries. It is a matter of simply picking up on those different ways business is conducted and saying, "Let's use the local business practice," or at least get benchmarking started informally and then see how it can be more formalized. JN: Are there techniques you have seen used to help stabilize cultural differences when comparing data derived from a variety of local sources? Robert Camp: The data and information have to be normalized in some fashion. Local people would be the most knowledgeable to do that. I think this is particularly necessary when comparing the use of technology, the level of use of technology, and work ethics. Increasingly, however, these dimensions are levelling off. If you go to Asia-Pacific countries, for example, the level of the technology in use is nearly equivalent to that in the US, particularly when it comes to the types of databases being used and the ability for databases to be networked. I think we have to be a little cautious about how much of a difference there really is. However, it does bear investigation. JN: When benchmarking teams are doing the initial research necessary to identify potential partners in an international study, how can they be sure they have identified the best in class? Robert Camp: First of all, it is critical that they even do the research. Regardless of where you go in the world, there are periodicals or newspapers or business publications that produce things like industry reviews or annual reviews. This activity is a lifeblood to many of the business periodicals. So you will find a handful of periodicals that put together reviews of businesses in Singapore or businesses in Australia or businesses in New Zealand, for example. These reviews will cite companies that have been proven by their research to have performed well. That is a starting point. There are organizations that want to point with pride to those local companies and local operating units that are doing exceptionally well. Searching for these will provide the team with either a potential first set of companies to consider, or with a reference to organizations they have already identified. Then the research is a matter of confirming the selected companies through as many sources as possible. There are many ways of doing this, including contacting consulting organizations to say, "We are doing a benchmarking study on such and such a process: who, from your experience, should be on the list?" It might be a good idea to start with

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consulting and audit organizations with whom they have had ongoing relationships for years. In these cases, that information would be readily shared. It really comes down to using local sources as a starting point, but then confirming the list from several angles, from several different points of view, to get in effect a confirmation that there is this set of companies that ought to be considered. And then lastly, it is just a matter of contacting the companies and asking them. There is certainly nothing wrong with using an article for the basis of contacting a company cited in a local periodical as a leading company in a certain process. You will tell them, "We saw this write-up about you, we have done a little additional research through some other sources that seems to confirm that you are doing some things exceptionally well. Would you confirm for us that your performance is at such and such a level?" If the information is confirmed, that contact becomes the basis for opening the door and potentially arranging a benchmarking visit. JN: You have been credited with introducing a research tool called triangulation. Would you explain how it is used? Robert Camp: Triangulation is a technical term that comes out of the land surveying business. It means "to confirm from several sources." Triangle means three points of view. When we triangulate on a particular piece of information, we validate it from several sources to insure we have some confirming evidence that our initial assumptions are correct. It is a particularly appropriate tool for benchmarkers. A person doing benchmarking looks for initial information that would indicate the selected company is best in class, but does not accept that evidence at face value. They go back to research it a little more thoroughly. JN: Do most large, international organizations have in-house research capabilities that smaller companies might not have? Robert Camp: What seems to be the pattern is that organizations are appointing somebody to be responsible for this activity. You can, with some level of confidence, call up a company today and say, "Who is responsible for benchmarking in your organization?" And you will get an answer. Obviously that request will be more readily responded to by the larger firms than the smaller ones. But even in small companies in the US, thanks in large part to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award which has as one category "small business," companies would understand what benchmarking is. They may not have one person in charge of benchmarking, but they may direct you to their quality manager or someone else who would be the right person to talk to. Benchmarking has become so important that most organizations have somebody identified somewhere as either specifically responsible for it or in a position to maintain some competence. JN: What can an international organization hope to achieve with benchmarking that may result in better than best in class performance? Robert Camp: First let me say there is a tendency to banter these terms around a bit, such as best in class, best practices, and so forth. Best is a difficult word to define, but I am not going to agonize over the fact that we use it because I don't know of any alternative, and furthermore, we ought to be constantly striving to be the best anyway. Using these terms makes people aware of the fact that they need constantly to keep their eye on what is best, because if they don't there is the serious risk of becoming non-­competitive. It's like using six sigma as a goal. Will we ever reach six sigma in reliability? I don't know. But if we don't use that as a goal, we could fall back and say we should be

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satisfied if we reach ten sigma. I've had a lot of conversations with people about whether we ought to use these terms or others, and the bottom line is that most people feel best practices and best in class are worthwhile terms. They not only get the meaning across, best is, in fact, what we are striving for. We need to stretch goals and in the context of benchmarking, that's what the word "best" (relative to best practices or best in class) brings to the table. Where do you find best in class and what do people mean by that? Well, we can look at it from several different angles. One way is to say you are striving for best in class for a particular process. What we mean by that is the company in question is probably looking for what may be best among its domestic operating companies. But what you eventually want to shoot for is commonly called world class. What that means is for a particular process you may be the best in the US, but there is some operating unit overseas that is even better. So there is such a thing as a world class operation. A lot of companies are setting up internal best operations by identifying a best manufacturing plant (or some other operational unit) for maintenance, assembly, stamping, and any number of other core processes. They then hold that process or unit up as the internal best for the others throughout the organization to compare themselves to. JN: There are a number of worldwide organizations that have a process in place to facilitate this internal world class benchmarking. Kodak, for example, uses a process designed to identify what they call "Kodak Class." Robert Camp: That's what we would call internal benchmarking – finding out who is the internal best. That is more typical than not in a lot of manufacturing organizations, especially where there are multiple plants around the world. It is fairly standard practice for these organizations to identify who is best at a series of particular functions and use these processes as standards for the others to compare themselves to. Organizations have to decide for themselves what best in class and world class mean to them. For example, are they searching for internal best practices domestically or are they looking for the best operating subsidiary worldwide? I think the words “best in class” still bring to mind what we want to accomplish. They imply identifying the standard we want to establish for ourselves, but at the same time constantly striving to be the best by looking in other places and keeping our eye on the fact that we need to continually search for the best in the world. The idea is to get there by taking incremental steps. One of the things we recommend is to start out by benchmarking in their own local community, whether that is Rochester, NY or anywhere else. There is a lot that can be learned right in your own backyard. We recommend starting locally and then eventually broadening the effort so it becomes a constant search for who is the best. JN: Do organizations overseas use these awards more as a method of assessment or are they typically focused on winning the award? Robert Camp: I think the companies that have given some serious thought to these criteria are using them as assessment vehicles first. Often it starts with larger companies in those countries, and then the other firms learn from them. Because a lot of those larger firms have come to the US, they've learned from us, they've done some benchmarking here, they come to conferences, they study everything that has been published, they're actively pursuing ways to enhance their local image and public relations and so forth. So they've done a great deal to learn from us and one of the things they've learned is that award criteria can be a powerful assessment vehicle. I think most of these awards have only been granted in the last two or three years. Baldrige has been in effect in the US since 1987. So you've got a long track record in the US versus a shorter one in many other countries. I don't think you can expect the level of understanding about the value of the criteria as an assessment vehicle to be as broad in

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other countries. In a couple of years, I think you will find people overseas are going to understand that while quality awards do bring a lot of prestige, much of the value is in conducting and responding to the assessment. JN: Are companies in the US on the leading edge of practices like assessment and benchmarking? Robert Camp: Yes, I think so, and benchmarking is being spread throughout the world by the quality awards. It is also being spread by the establishment of benchmarking centres around the world. There have been a number of independent, third-party, typically not-for-­profit associated organizations founded in areas in which a lot of benchmarking is being performed. You can call it a clearinghouse, a centre, an institute – in Italy it's called a club. They typically offer products and services to local people, including things like networking and partnering opportunities. This is another way benchmarking gets spread overseas. For example, we at Xerox helped establish a benchmarking centre in Singapore. It involved partnering between a not-for-profit organization in Singapore called the National Productivity Board, a highly respected training organization, and the local Xerox entity. The people in our local operating unit had some discussions with the folks at the National Productivity Board about what they could do to assist in identifying and developing some of the skill sets required for benchmarking. As a result, both parties agreed to form a two-year partnership to, in effect, transfer the benchmarking skills within Xerox to the National Productivity Board so it could become more widely available to operations in Singapore. Key messages: • In countries where benchmarking is comparatively new, the local operating units of

multinational companies will often have useful benchmarking experience. • Be aware of cultural differences which may affect your international benchmarking

project before you begin. • Before selecting an overseas benchmarking partner, try to confirm from several

different sources that a potential partner does indeed operate at the level of excellence you require.

• If your organization has branches, divisions or affiliates overseas, always try to involve them early on in your internal benchmarking projects.

January 2009.