剑桥商务英语：阅读模拟题四

Useful Words and Expressions:

Benchmarking; world-beating; assemble; be committed to;

Have you ever noticed the following sentences in your reading? If not, read them through and pay attention to the bold parts.

16. Self-criticism is at the heart of the process although in some cases this may upset managers who are reluctant to question long established practices.

17. It might also include studying companies which use similar processes to your own, even though they are producing different goods. The point is to look at the process rather than the product.

18. All of these handbooks are communicating complex information in a simple way - exactly what we are aiming to do. And in many cases they succeed far better than any computer company.”

19. Everyone agrees that the process must have the full approval of senior management but that it is best carried out by a comparatively small team.

Additional Reading Material:

Who's best? How good are they? How do we get that good? What is Benchmarking? 

Benchmarking is the process of determining who is the very best, who sets the standard, and what that standard is. In baseball, you could argue that seven consecutive World Series Championships made the New York Yankees the benchmark. If we were to benchmark "world conquest", what objective measure would we use to compare Julius Caesar to Adolph Hitler; Gengis Khan to Napoleon? Which of them was the epitome, and why?

We do the same thing in business. Who is the best sales organization? The most responsive customer service department? The leanest manufacturing operation? And how do we quantify that standard?