Commission proposes benchmarking as a tool for competitiveness
Following a proposal by Mr. Martin Bangemann, Commissioner responsible for industrial policy, the European Commission has approved a communication proposing benchmarking as a tool for enhancing the competitiveness of European industry. Europe's industry is lagging behind major competitors like the United States and Japan, in terms of job creation, productivity levels and employment rates. In view of this, the European Commission has repeatedly stressed the need to sharpen Europe's competitiveness. This latest proposal suggests European action to implement benchmarking as a tool for improving Europe's performance. There are a number of reasons why the European Union should become involved in benchmarking. First, the impact of policies developed at Union level which influence competitiveness must have as positive an effect as possible. Regular monitoring and evaluation against best practice world-wide is required to ensure that these policies are indeed providing the necessary benefits. Secondly, many policies are the responsibilities of Member States and their ability to benchmark both against each other, and with regard to best practice world-wide, should be encouraged. Collection of data is both an expensive and time consuming process. By pooling their efforts, the Commission and Member States can make substantial savings in the benchmarking process. In its communication, the Commission proposes that the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament recognize the value of benchmarking and support the Commission's intention over the coming year to bring forward a programme of benchmarking. This will be done in close consultation with industry and Member States. In addition, the Commission calls on the Council of Ministers and European Parliament to support the drawing up of a multi-annual European Quality Promotion programme of actions. This should contribute to reinforcing European competitiveness by focusing, in particular, on the promotion of self assessment, benchmarking, networking of information and the development of European quality training programmes and techniques for measuring progress. The proposed work programme, to be drawn up in the course of 1997, should include a number of pilot projects to test the validity and feasibility of the application of benchmarking at different levels.