Benchmarking: The Reasons, Expectations, and Results

This IDC study discusses our recent survey of Canadian outsourcing users on their experience with benchmarking. IDC Canada believes that there is a requirement for benchmarking in today's outsourcing market. With contracts averaging a little more than five years in length, it is inevitable that during the term of the outsourcing contract, the client's business, strategies, and technologies will change, as will its objectives and expectations of outsourcing. IDC has invested considerable effort in the area of benchmarking. The results include IDC's seminal work concerning best practices and how the largest users of benchmarking, outsourcing vendors, utilize it as a tool to limit their exposure and improve the competitiveness of their pricing.

"Benchmarking is reshaping the financial model of outsourcing," says Mark Schrutt, director, Outsourcing Services. "With contracts worth millions of dollars being renegotiated, benchmarking provides one of the most valuable tools a client has to realign the outsourcing contract to current business requirements and recalibrate pricing to the market range."