Methods for Benchmarking the Firm Performance and Its Influence on the Efficiency Indicators

The paper relates to the findings offered by various researches in the field of performance management and consists of adjusting and suggestions for applying the cross impact method, and trend impact analysis on the possible correlated variables. Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry best practices. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time, and cost, but nost of the cases, a large number of financial and non-finalcial indicators are involved. In a new appropch, the present paper suggests the application of Cross-Impact Analysis to identify the most influencing factor of influence on various area of performance. The general CIA is used to identify, for deeper understanding, the correlation among a set of variables by revealing the characteristic role of a factor / variable in relation to all other variables within a system. The CIA method is used then to identify those variables that play a significant role in the improving the firm's performance in the future. Without a way to measure relevant financial and operational indicators, managers might find blocked in decision making relying on, eventually, educated guesswork. The key contributions and the novelty degree came from the newly envisaged method of making the connection among the possible events, factors of succes and scenario for business climate - all shaping the way in which the business process of creating value is designed to be benchmarked.