Benchmarking Part II: How to analyse, report and use your findings

Intro

This is the second article discussing how to run a benchmarking project.

If you haven’t read the first, in which we covered the methodology and execution of data collection, I recommend checking it out before reading this one: Link.

This article focuses on the analysis and creation of a report (and other deliverables) and using the findings to achieve business goals.

If you are a pharma/ med tech leader looking to work with a consultancy on conducting a benchmarking exercise, this article will help you know what to expect and what to ask for.

You can also use it as a guide if you’re conducting research within your company with an internal project team.

Analysis and report creation

We left off the last article having completed the data collection, using various sources and methodologies, and organizing it into an easy-to-navigate library.

The next stage is to create a report, usually in slide format.

A quick sidebar on PowerPoint decks: I have seen multiple consultancies communicate on LinkedIn about moving away from delivering a deck at the end of a project (they’re boring/outdated, etc.)

I agree and have supplemented delivery with other formats, including podcasts, video competitor briefings, infographics, and short-form video recordings of critical points, all of which have received positive feedback.

However, a central synthesized master source still needs to exist so that someone can read through the entirety of the research. I will explain the creation of a typical report.

When preparing a benchmarking report, I typically create three levels (plus a section explaining the methodology and appendix). The order I’ll list is the order I would work on them (using the pyramid principle), but it is the reverse of the deck order.

1. Company/product overviews (Bottom of the deck)
2. Comparative analysis (Middle of the deck)
3. Executive summary and recommendations (Top few slides)

Different stakeholders will likely use each section in your organization as the project is completed and follow-up activities start.

Let’s start with the company overviews.

1. Company Overviews

The company overviews are the lowest level of the main report and are stand-alone profiles capturing all the critical data for each company. The mental exercise of creating these is an essential step in building up to the comparative analysis and final recommendations,

These will be detailed and certainly aren’t for presentation in a meeting with leadership, but they are valuable references. They may form the background for implementing processes or activities modeled on a specific company after the project.

The first step is to create a series of templates displaying important information that can be used for all benchmarks. Generally, I do this in parallel with the data gathering phase, story boarding ideas, and discussing with clients to get agreement before creating slides.

Each slide should focus on one topic and include all the details for that company. Example company slides I have created at this level include:

• Financials - Either capturing all relevant values for a given year or multiple periods
• Maps - Showing locations of manufacturing, development, operations, or sales sites
• Product portfolio / Pipeline - Mapping out the therapy areas a company is or isn’t active in, its products delivered by devices, or an overview of its late-stage pipeline
• Strategy and commentary from earnings calls - To give an idea of the company plans and how it is moving forward.
• Leader profiles - Top executive’s previous actions and approach to running businesses and how this could impact how they run their current company
• Deal activity - Showing partnership frequency, amount, and type
• Org Chart - ****An overview of the team, function, or company of interest As a quick note, this can be one of the most challenging to populate and is an art that comes with practice. You can sketch an estimate by piecing together information from LinkedIn profiles, job adverts, senior leader interviews, primary interview findings, and understanding based on your organization.

In addition to templates for all the benchmarks, you will likely capture qualitative data for 1 or 2, so custom slides/sections are needed for these companies.

The analysis on these slides should focus on why companies are doing something, proposing suggestions or scenarios that explain their findings, and forward-looking assumptions on how they could evolve.

I wouldn’t typically include cross-comparisons between companies at this level; these would be saved for the next section.

2. Comparative analysis

The comparative analysis is a critical part of the report. It gathers information from all the companies and comments on their differences and what might be best or worst. This is where the reporting gets more exciting and valuable for your team, who can implement changes to your business.

Like the company slides, the project team should discuss what can be compared across the different companies during the data-gathering phase, using storyboarding charts and infographics. To supplement this during the individual company reporting stage, I would note interesting observations and create hypotheses about why this might be.

Quant Data

Quant data is “easier” to visualize, with different charts and tables being a “straightforward” way to compare companies.

I say easier because visualizing is a skill, as is deciding which data are valuable to show and how to draw attention through sensible use of color and bolding. I highly recommend Cole Knaflic’s book Storytelling with Data to anyone who regularly expects to interpret and present data like this.

One key point is to ensure your quant data in the final report are explanative, not explorative; if you plan to share this report with your execs or broader team, you want to draw their attention to the critical points/so what without them having to read through and figure out the meaning.

When exploring the data, sometimes trends leap out, e.g., a more extensive R&D department launching more new devices. But other times, there can be muddles with no clear trend. These can still be worth presenting and drawing attention to - sometimes, no finding is still a finding.

If quantitative data have been captured before primary interviews, you can ask experts directly why this might be. Even if the analysis happens after all of the collection, you can pair qualitative points together to help interpret the quantitative data.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative data can be more challenging to visualize. It's easy to fall into the trap of creating text boxes and dumping information in a repeat of the body slides with multiple companies on the same slide.

But we can do better than that and avoid a wall of bullet points.

Once you have executed multiple benchmarking projects, you build up 1) a library of previous templates that can be adapted and 2) comfort in testing new ideas to represent information differently.

Here are a few examples from projects I have done that would be a go-to:

• Simplified comparison of organization structure models (Therapy area vs geographic vs hybrid)
• 2x2 plot where each axis represents a key factor, and you create four subgroups that represent archetypes for those factors
• Timeline/evolution of the business model, partnerships, or processes
• Table with Harvey Balls to subjectively rank factors, or
• Table with checkmarks, symbols, or concise phrases to show companies’ activity in certain areas, capabilities, or partnerships

One of the more significant challenges is ensuring that any visualization is understandable to your leadership or other team members not actively involved in the project. Nothing is worse than showing a visualization of complex qualitative data you spent many hours on, then explaining and presenting it to your leadership, who turns around and says, “I don’t get it.”

When testing new ideas, storyboard, discuss, and repeat until an intuitive visualization is shown. Even then, be prepared that not all audience members will see the findings as you wish, as people interpret qualitative visualizations differently (speaking from trial and error in personal experience).

Partial Data

I would still present topics for which information is not captured for all or even most of the benchmarks in the comparison section.

To aid interpretation, I would look to provide hypotheses or suggestions for the other companies based on any similarities or differences with the benchmarks data were captured for. For example, “Although we didn’t get details if Company X does Process1, given that its team has members with similar titles and responsibilities listed to Company Y, we assume it would not differ greatly.”

Incorporating your data

In the last article, I discussed the scenario where the research is being done externally, and the client decides whether to share their data before or after conducting the external research.

If your data were shared ahead of the external data collection, the project team would incorporate this simultaneously and compare it to the other companies. If not, you may want the external team to analyze the external space first, do a mini-readout, and then incorporate your company’s data.

3. Exec summary and recommendations

While working through the comparative analysis, it is critical to consider the final and most important stage: the recommendations.

Regarding layout and style in the report, I tend to keep this section relatively simple, consisting of ~1-5 slides. It doesn’t need fancy visuals or unnecessary complex jargon. It needs to highlight each recommendation, the evidence for it, and which companies you may look at to replicate (or avoid) when implementing.

You should look to cover all of the major factors that were benchmarked, even if it’s a single bullet point or comment, as part of a larger topic to represent the full scope.

As an example, this could be highlighting what a “good” output of products would be for your organization based on competitors of similar size, or with functions of a similar size, any processes they have that you don’t that would aid this, how the function is organized and how to avoid mistakes from a competitor who has a low output.

After the creation of the report

A crucial part of a benchmarking exercise is ensuring the findings from this project are taken forward for discussion and adoption of new processes or organizational structures, form part of a business case for funding, or show that your team is performing as needed or better.

You may take this to several different forums; each group will need something different. I’ll discuss the two main ones: your function and your leadership.

1. Presenting to your function (and neighboring functions that might be impacted)

Firstly, you may want to take the findings to a broader group within your function to flesh out recommendations, adding specific actions, costs, and other information.

A carefully designed workshop is a great way to “go beyond” the report. This is another case where external facilitation benefits free creative thinking, manages the process, and ensures everyone is equally involved.

The novel delivery techniques I mentioned earlier can be helpful here ahead of the workshop. We can engage team members with short video clips or podcasts so they can digest the likely sizeable findings in their own time, relay key details, and prep them for the exercises.

On the day, you can recap relevant information and then work on an exercise using various tools or templates to engage the findings and ensure they are used where needed. Each exercise should ideally conclude with the following steps, who is responsible, and the time frames.

2. Presenting to your boss/budget holders / internal committees

Upon project completion, you’ll likely need to present to more senior stakeholders, requiring effort beyond the original report (although this will be a useful reference for detailed questions).

It may well be that the project findings address a specific need or ask that you were set by leadership, and the findings give a clear path to address this objective.

It may also be that you were a discretionary budget holder and commissioned this to achieve your priorities; the findings/recommendations don’t directly align with the expectations or needs of your leadership; they aren’t a priority or other factors.

Presenting this will likely be more challenging, but a simple tip here is to relate the findings/recommendations to their goals and objectives. It seems obvious, but too often, when examining our goals in a role, we forget they may not directly align with our leadership.

Giving concrete examples linking your findings to their goals is context-dependent and challenging in a blog post like this. But generally, the higher up the organization you’re presenting to, the more likely the leader will look to improve their Profit/Loss (or show other value if a supporting function).

Doing something quicker, to a higher standard, or having a better-organized team should somehow relate to reducing expenses or, ideally, increasing revenue. If you can demonstrate this, you will be in a good position to persuade your leadership to sign off on your request.

3. Project closeout

If you needed approval from leadership and now have it, or your team has completed the action plan and next steps, I would consider the benchmarking project to be at the end of its lifestyle.

Hopefully, the report and findings will continue to be used. Whether it is a template to update for future years, provides metrics to measure against after implementing changes, or is used to onboard new team members, it should be useful for years to come.

Wrap up

Now that both parts of this benchmarking series have been completed, you should theoretically understand the project lifecycle. If you have a project on your horizon or may one day be conducting a benchmarking exercise, save this outline.

I always appreciate feedback, so please comment on the post or share a DM with what you found helpful or learned.

If you are considering conducting a benchmarking exercise and want to discuss any of the points in more detail or the feasibility of obtaining certain information, please email [email protected] to schedule a call.