How do you know if your product is high or low performing when it comes to key metrics such as market adoption, ownership, customer promoter score NPS (Net Promoter Score) ? One option is to compare your current performance with your past performance. Another is to compare your metrics to peer products of similar market size and industry. These are both forms of product comparison benchmarks. Let’s take a look at the benchmark study during the product development process.

What are product performance benchmarks  ?

Product performance benchmarks (also referred to as product benchmarks) are reference points used to compare your product with others. As with other areas of comparison, percentiles are often used to describe how well (or how poorly) your product performs on certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relative to products of similar size and industry. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are critical indicators of progress towards an intended outcome. KPIs provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision-making, and help focus attention on what matters most. Let’s take a look at why Benchmark is important in the Product Development Process.

Why is product benchmarking important?

For product comparison to be useful, there needs to be meaning behind the numbers. By comparing performance to industry standards, a company can better understand relative performance, including areas where they have a competitive advantage and areas for improvement. For example, how it performs against its peers, what approach competitors use to solve problems, and manufacturing methods are determined in order to form the basis for future improvements in the product. These determinations form the basis of new designs and developments.

As a result, product performance benchmarks are available so companies can identify ways to make their products better. Benchmarking is an important part of the continuous improvement cycle that involves measuring, comparing results to the competition, and identifying improvement opportunities. Before a company can reap the benefits of product benchmarks, it needs to make sure its product organization is effectively capturing product data and measuring the right things.

What metrics are important for product performance comparisons?

Comparison metrics vary depending on the product’s usage area, environmental conditions, product, targeted sector and audience. General parameters that need to be taken into account are;

In the Product Development Process, Benchmark studies play the most important role in creating priority issues in new designs and development studies, determining goals, and defining the problems to be solved. Defne Mühendislik has been consolidating the experience it has gained in backward engineering and design studies since 2005 with benchmark studies for its new designs.

References (1) : https://productcraft.com/perspectives/product-management-101-product-benchmarks/