RECENT NEWSWORTHY ANNOUNCEMENTS AND ARTICLES

Refine Benchmarking to deliver useful results - Most companies are getting poor value from the tens of millions of pounds spent on benchmarking the performance of their IT, according to a new survey. The survey, by research company OTR Group, questioned 300 users, outsourcing suppliers and benchmarking companies across Europe and found that benchmarking internal...more

Pharmaceutical Companies Develop Meetings Benchmarks - Pharmaceutical companies are using new meetings management benchmark data to continue consolidation drives and develop best practices as definitions of specific meeting types and spend... more

California Utilities Commission Launches Energy Efficiency Benchmarking Site - California's investor-owned utilities and energy commissions have sponsored an effort to systematically benchmark and draw lessons learned from programs implemented throughout the United States. The new Energy Efficiency Best Practices Web site... more

Benchmarking Corporate Governance on Product Toxicity and Safer Alternatives - The benchmark framework calls for corporate commitment to safer alternatives policy, investor and public accountability, data development, and internal capacity building and "greening" the supply chain. more

Ignoring Six Sigma Can Cost You Money: Black Belts Deliver $188K Hard Financial Savings Per Project - A recent iSixSigma Magazine benchmarking study found that the median value of "hard" financial benefit of using Black Belts (business professionals who lead Six Sigma process improvement projects full time) is $188,000. That figure represents savings delivered per project across all industries and company sizes. more

Research and Markets: Customer Service Performance Benchmarks - Research and Markets has announced the addition of Customer Service Performance Benchmarks to their offering. The Performance Benchmarks series of reports provide metrics... more

Agent Training Is Not a Priority in Contact Centers - ... and as a result are seeing their customers grow increasingly impatient with service delivery. The report, "Merchants Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report," is based on data collected from 166 contact centers in 24 countries. more

Phelon Group Releases Customer Reference Program Benchmarking Study 2005 - If 2005 is the year of the customer, that corporate creed has yet to translate into real support for customer reference programs, according to an annual benchmarking study of customer reference programs released today by The Phelon Group. more

International Comparisons Of Productivity - After the periodic major benchmarking exercise of prices across all OECD countries, the UK's productivity performance continues to be lower than France and the USA. UK productivity in 2003, as measured by GDP per worker, was 11 per cent below that of the average of all other G7 countries. Before this revision, UK productivity was 13 per cent lower. more

Magic's iBOLT Achieves Gold Award Accreditation in the CityCompass B.I.S.S. for Financial Services - The unique, business-oriented benchmarking exercise was designed by CityCompass to reduce the misinformation that often lengthens the sales process by providing independent analysis audited by a user panel of CIOs drawn from some of the industry’s leading organisations. The culmination of the benchmarking is an independent research report that includes a detailed product and service review. more

Law firms are becoming increasingly aware of quality issues... - The fifth Law Management Section/Baker Tilly Financial Benchmarking Survey is based on responses from 194 small and medium-size firms. more

Coremetrics launches retail and category-specific benchmarking index - Web analytics provider Coremetrics Inc. has launched a new benchmarking index for the retail industry, LIVEmark, based on data aggregated from retail clients it says account for some $10 billion in online sales annually. The index lets retailers compare themselves on more than 35 metrics to both industrywide benchmarks and to benchmarks established for their specific category. more

SatisAction(TM) Research Metrics Identify Key Areas for Health Plan Satisfaction Improvement - SatisAction metrics provide a performance dashboard for health insurance companies to gauge the effectiveness of their products for all key constituencies, including members, employers, patients, physician partners, hospital administrators, brokers and consultants. more

Running I.T. Operations Like a Business - PSEG's shared-services unit has developed a mature chargeback system for the I.T. services it delivers to business units. It has also built credibility with business users by benchmarking costs with external I.T. service providers and reducing I.T. expenses by $63 million between 2001 and 2004. more

CPGs Ally on Supply Chain Benchmarking - Top consumer products companies form board in project to highlight best practices across industry - Six leading consumer products companies have joined forces to conduct an in-depth review of the supply chain best practices and metrics of the world's leading consumer products companies. more

Ipsos-Reid Launches Call Centre Evaluation Program - Ipsos-Reid reports today the results of a new pilot program launched in 2004 to evaluate and measure call centre performance. The program, called the Ipsos-Reid Call Centre of the Year (CCOTY), was established as a vehicle to recognize high performing call centres and to be able to provide benchmarking information that would allow participating call centres to compare their performance to other call centres. more

ARC Develops Benchmarking Model for Logistics Service Providers - In a comprehensive market study to be published April 15th, ARC details a Logistics Service Provider (3PL) Maturity Model to help service providers benchmark themselves against the competition and help manufacturers and retailers evaluate different providers. more

Evalubase Research Counters Traditional IT Research Methods with User-Based Vendor Ratings, Reviews and Benchmarking - Evalubase Research, Inc. today announced the general availability of its online benchmarking and market intelligence service for the information technology (IT) industry. more

SunGard Offers Data-Center Benchmarking Tools - SunGard Availability Services on Tuesday rolled out benchmarking and total-cost-of-ownership assessment tools designed to help businesses estimate data-center operation costs, everything from hosting a new application to an entire data center move. more

AAberdeen releases benchmarking study of process oriented manufacturing - Aberdeen Group, announced the publication of its benchmarking study for chemical, food & beverage, pharmaceutical and other process oriented manufacturers. more

American Express Launches Industry First Benchmarking Solution for Analyzing Corporate Card Spending - American Express Global Corporate Services launched the industry's first dynamic Corporate Card based benchmarking solution for comparing corporate travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses. more

Sarbanes-Oxley Study Designed to Uncover True Cost Of Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting & Compliance; Benchmarking Study by The Hackett Group Provides Executives with Insight into Hidden Costs & Inefficiencies - A new benchmarking study designed to quantify the total cost of internal controls over financial reporting and compliance has been launched by The Hackett Group, a business process advisory firm and an Answerthink company. more

Unisys Offers CRM Benchmarking Research Service - Unisys 3D Benchmarking for CRM will provide statistically-validated best practices that allow organizations to confidently implement those CRM programs that will best support their business goals. more

First of Its Kind Benchmarking Study Uncovers Major Shortfalls in Email Customer Service Among Small and Medium-Sized Businesses - A Stunning 51% of Businesses Failed to Respond to Emails With High-Value Purchase Intent in Study Conducted by BenchmarkPortal... more