Not surprisingly, Employee Development is in first place.  Combining this with  Employee Benefits (ranked #6), it's very clear that organizations continue to be heavily committed to and involved with their employee's interests.  With unemployment at an all-time low and skill levels on the rise, holding on to your most valuable asset, the employee, has become more important than ever. Employee Development includes areas such as Training, Career Counseling and Assessments. With all the new technology available via the Internet, in addition to the traditional learning tools, e-Learning has recently become the new wave for efficient training.

Customer Satisfaction includes sub-processes such as Customer Service, Customer Focus and Help Desks. It would appear that in the past, organizations were so busy trying to manage their internal processes that the Customer was put aside. As you would expect, Customers began to revolt and exit. Once organizations were done putting out their internal fires (and if they were still around) they were able to better focus on Customer issues. With competition at an all-time high and the recent deregulation of several industries, the Customer process is sure to be in the top five for years to come. Expect to see this process gain even more momentum with the advent of new Customer service tools (product and service ordering, technical and sales material, etc.); available via the Internet.

Human Resources continues to be among the top five processes benchmarked in 2000. It seems that with all of the mergers, downsizing, rightsizing, and upsizing activity in the mid-to-late 90's, that the need for better benefits packages, recruitment of new skilled employees and retaining existing skilled employees have created many challenges for Human Resources. Merger mania is still going strong, but has become more of an international effort rather than within the same country.  This keeps employees in their jobs because of the difficulty in consolidating departments and/or functions when organizations reside in multiple countries. But you need to keep them happy! So, Human Resources is sure to be challenged with new technologies, employee needs and stakeholder interests for quite sometime.

The Marketing process jumped from the shadows at 35^th place in 1999 to hitting the top five as 4^th place in 2000. This is the most dramatic process focus turnaround we've ever seen. Chances are, your organization spent some serious money in the past year on Internet Marketing. The incredibly high Return On Investment (ROI) of marketing on the Internet can't be ignored. You must, and you will, market your products and services on the Net. Even if your organization doesn't sell directly to the public, your website will be pointing potential Customers to a distributor's website. With just a couple of mouse clicks, a potential Customer can have a complete catalogue to peruse with up to the minute product selections, availability and prices. And, since the ROI is so good, sellers can offer substantial discounts for orders made over the web and still realize a high profit margin. Even if you don't have anything to sell (government agencies for example), you will have a website. Even the smallest company can look and feel like a giant at a fraction of the cost of other forms of marketing. Internet Search Engines such as Yahoo, Google, Lycos and hundreds more, steer potential, and more importantly, interested clients right to your door. Like catfish in a barrel.