Kaiser's 3 "Moments of Truth"

Kaiser believes there are 3 "moments of truth" in the design of a Benchmarking project. The choices made at these 3 points can literally mean the difference between a mediocre outcome and breakthrough results.

We believe that Kaiser demonstrates the superiority of our approach every time we help our clients win at these 3 "moments of truth." The decisions we make in these 3 areas consistently lead to exponentially greater value and impact.

1) Identifying Key Performance Drivers > Ensuring Actionable Results

The first "moment of truth" happens when you design a robust set of performance drivers into the scope of work.

A very common pitfall in Benchmarking is defining the scope of work to focus exclusively on the performance metrics. Yes, the performance metrics are absolutely critical for identifying gaps and the magnitude of any such gaps. However, performance metrics alone do not provide the how's and why's that are driving the gap, nor do they provide guidance around how to improve and how much to improve. The Benchmarking project that focuses exclusively on performance metrics typically becomes a superficial numbers exercise, producing conclusions that raise more questions than they answer. Unfortunately, this type of project usually sits on the shelf and does not lead to action or change.

In defining the scope of work, we believe it is imperative to include both the performance metrics and the story behind the metrics (i.e., all the how's and why's that drive performance). It is the performance drivers that generate powerful insights, actionable conclusions, and measurable improvement.


2) Selecting the "Right" Benchmark Companies > Ensuring Applicability of Learnings

The second "moment of truth" is when you select Benchmark Companies that are highly relevant to your company and your current situation.

Indeed, another common pitfall in Benchmarking is identifying "best-in-class" Benchmark Companies without screening / qualifying them for relevance. Once you have defined the universe of best-in-class companies, we believe it is imperative to identify those that are most relevant to your company and your situation in order to ensure applicability of learnings. At this "moment of truth," we help our clients consider industry, scale / scope, strategy, culture, etc. in order to arrive at the right set of "best-in-class" companies that will deliver highly applicable learnings and, therefore, highly actionable results.

3) Workplanning / Allocating Resources > Ensuring Value Add

The third "moment of truth" occurs when you deliberately and strategically allocate resources towards the most value-added activities.

An all-too-common pitfall in Benchmarking is over-investing in data gathering at the expense of analysis, insights, communication, etc. From our 20+ years of experience, we believe the optimal allocation is as follows: