Operations: Two industry veterans share their insights on using Benchmarks & Best Practices

CS: When in your view does benchmarking become particularly problematic?

Barry: Financial people often want to know ratios such as percent to net sales. These can be misleading if you make an incorrect comparison between companies of widely differing AOV, conventional vs. automated sortation in the warehouse, etc. It’s better to focus on units of work: calls or e-mails answered, cost per order, etc. These can be compared between similar companies.