Why Benchmark Your Business?

• For information
• For early warning signs
• For efficient decision-making

Research shows that the most successful companies use metrics and benchmarking as a key information and management tool.   Benchmarks are used to help set internal targets, and gain agreement on the appropriate targets by providing neutral data to set performance expectations among the executive team.

At T2 Systems, we migrated our customers to the SAAS business model in 2005.  Since then, we struggled to find key benchmark data that we could use to determine the quality of the Company’s financial metrics.  OPEX Engine easily filled that void for our team by providing us with key data points ranging from customer acquisition costs to revenue per employee.  OPEX is one of our strategic planning tools.
Jim Zaloudek, CFO, T2 Systems, Inc.

Benchmarking also can help highlight the latest changes going on in the market in business models.  It helps companies track to industry leaders.

It used to be that benchmarking was used primarily in the manufacturing arena to improve process efficiency and performance.  Today, we are seeing some of the same processes being applied to financial and KPI benchmarking to improve business performance and to support data-driven business decision-making within companies.

Companies are also using benchmarking to identify business model changes within their sector or industry – and business models are changing for almost every industry in today’s digital, global marketplace.

We always tell companies that deviating from the benchmarks isn’t good or bad, it is just important to understand how and why you are deviating from a benchmark, rather than making decisions based only on internal information. Benchmarking has its limits, but is a useful tool to drive decisions based on data rather than by intuition or how things were done at somebody’s last company.  And in today’s complex world, no company can afford to make performance decisions without good quality benchmarks to inform them.

Software and SaaS Benchmarking Reports

OPEXEngine provides high-quality, detailed benchmarking reports for software and SaaS companies.

2012 Software and SaaS Benchmarking Survey

The 2012 survey is open from 1-Feb through 31-Mar. Take a look and see if benchmarks for your peers from this survey could be useful to your planning and performance management process – and participate now.