The economic crisis has caused numerous and rapid changes in the agri-food sector: changes in ingredients, changes in packaging (materials, grammages, number of inks, formats, etc.), price drops, brand repositioning, etc. Are we attentive to these movements? How often do we analyze the competition?

Benchmarking is a business management technique that seeks to discover and define the aspects that make a company more profitable than another and then adapt the acquired knowledge to the characteristics of the company itself.

Benchmarking means “referential comparison” and was born from the need to create a constant research process that seeks new ideas to carry out methods and practices to obtain the best of the best, so that thanks to the continuous search for improvements, we get to find advantages that translate into positive results for companies.

While it is true that the literature talks about different types of Benchmarking, in this article I would like to focus on “competitive benchmarking”. This modality has been used over time by many companies without being aware that they were doing it since it is about making a complete analysis of the competition; The competition is the closest point of reference and the one that most affects the company at the time of sale. It’s not just about knowing who is the best and who does it best … it’s about learning from them to be able to do it just as well and even better.

Many companies only follow their competition in a shallow way and by geographical proximity, without getting to complete reports with strengths, weaknesses and aspects of improvement. Occasionally someone appears for the company and says that the competition has changed its packaging or its format and that is the analysis.

Competitive benchmarking consists in the complete investigation of the competition in relation to products, processes and activities through a “commercial intelligence service”. This research is carried out by observing the competition, the purchase of their products, detailed analysis of them, etc. The method for data collection is very broad and the researcher / marketing staff can obtain information from various sources, such as internal information about the products themselves (tastings and meetings with the Quality and R + D + i department), Public domain sources (libraries, publications, web pages, external studies, etc.), own market studies (sensory analysis, group dynamics, in-depth interviews, etc.).

Visits to the competition require prior preparation and training; It is not about “going shopping to look”, but it is necessary to determine previously what type of information is to be collected, which are the places to visit, the optimal routes that allow obtaining the information in the shortest possible time, preparation of templates and documentation for the collection of information, preparation and presentation of the reports of conclusions, etc.

The previous training process of the research staff is very important and essential. Take, for example, an analysis of the competition in the meat sector. If the person in charge of carrying it out has not received previous training on the different pieces of beef, it will probably not be able to differentiate at the point of sale a high loin from a low one, a sirloin with the designation of origin of a cut of a needle or a a stubby lid, so the report will compare parts and products that are not comparable to each other and the final report will be completely invalid. The same would happen if we compare mixed hamburgers: the percentages of beef, pork or poultry are fundamental when determining the final pvp,

It is very important to emphasize that benchmarking requires the involvement of the management team to obtain their commitment in the application of the improvements proposed by the marketing department once the measures to be adopted have been clearly defined. In addition to the address, all the staff of the company can participate by contributing new related products seen abroad or in the supermarket at home.

Finally, highlight the importance of regularly doing comparative sensory analyzes of our agri-food products: the changes that are taking place in the agri-food sector and in the ingredients (fundamentally focused on cost savings, leaving the quality in the background) can make the products of the competition improve in relation to ours, that the clients prefer them and that we do not find out because two years ago we did not make a comparative sensory analysis that objectively details the positioning of our product in relation to the competition more direct, it may even be the case that the study was done only during the launch phase of the product and we think that everything remains the same years later.