Hagan School of Business
Assignments
Assignment 1: The Benchmarking Plan (20% of course grade)
A primary goal of this graduate business course is to offer you the opportunity to create a plan for conducting a benchmarking study. Most students will be able to plan a study related to, and hopefully beneficial to, their current company or employer. However, if you are not currently working or do not wish to use your company for this project, then you may do this project for another organization from which you will have to obtain information.
The benchmarking plan may be for a competitive, functional, or generic (best-in-class) project. Students will form benchmarking partner groups based on the type of study and processes to be analyzed for improvement. You are expected to use the web page discussion forums to discuss your company and potential business processes for analysis with other students in this course. Students can and should work together to choose processes for which they will be able to share their company data with their benchmarking partners in this course. As stated on the course syllabus, your overall course grade will be based partially on your participation in the course discussion forums.
The benchmarking plan you will write should be based on the lessons learned in the course lectures, web sites, course discussions, and the course textbook. In particular, there are many useful forms in the textbook that can be used in the plan to help you devise a practical strategy for deciding what to benchmark and who to benchmark with. Your plan should begin by listing your company’s core competencies, key business processes, and critical success factors. The purpose of your research study should be clearly defined, the method should be described, and your method of data analysis proposed. It is recommended that you include some of the following documents from the textbook in your plan:
The benchmarking plan will be an individual report from each student for the company they are planning this study.
The length of the project plan may vary, but will probably be between 7 to 10 pages when completed, including the planning document worksheets above. The document should be prepared using MS Office or MS Word.
Please submit this to the instructor by July 26.
Assignment 2: Benchmarking Final Report
After you have submitted your benchmarking project plan, you should begin collecting your benchmarking data, analyzing the level of the performance gaps, and preparing a plan for adapting best practices for improvement. You should answer the remaining questions in the benchmarking study list (pg. 25), and include specific goals for your company to aim for. Completed worksheets and figures in your final report may include:
Of course, include more than just the above completed forms. You should describe how you collected the data, what the results showed, and how you plan to implement desired changes in your business processes. Since the timeframe of this course may not allow you to implement the changes, you may include performance projections based on data you have uncovered.
Again, this is an individually prepared report for the company you are representing in this course exercise. You should include a description of how you worked with other students in the course to collect and share data, but the results will be for your company’s participation in this benchmarking study.
This final report is worth 25% of your final course grade. Please prepare this document using MS Office or MS Word.
Please submit this to the instructor by August 6.