When you are developing business value cases, there is often the need to calculate the projected value of your initiative through industry benchmarks. Looking for credible benchmarks takes an effort.
Here are six tips to surf for value modeling benchmarks:
- Look to see if your organization has a subscription with the research companies. Their industry reports usually have numerous benchmark information that is considered credible enough for many senior executives.
- Deep search the internet. Use traditional search engines like Google and Bing to get to the first level of information. Sometimes, the second level of information is only accessed by humans. Many sites require you to register for free to access additional content. The search bots are not able to get to this information.
- Try multiple search engines. Each of the search engine bots operate using slightly different algorithms. Search results from the major engines, while mostly similar, also markedly differ in niche areas.
- Ask around inside the organization if a particular metric is measured. For instance, if you are looking for workplace productivity metrics, perhaps the HR department has anonymized information on workplace analytics.
- Use proxy metrics. Sometimes, a metric measurement may not be directly available but a similar metric might be equally effective in benchmarking. For instance, if you are looking to measure the stability/quality of a software system, the number of help desk tickets per month is a good proxy indicator of the stability of the system.
- Finally, do not be afraid to use slightly stale data. Previous years’ industry reports are usually given away for free by most of the research companies. There is a wealth of valuable information in there that can be extrapolated to your needs. Of course, a lot of this depends on your particular benchmark need. Some of the information may be quite volatile in which case you ought to be using the latest benchmarks.
