Barriers to internal benchmarking initiatives: an empirical investigation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on the identification of barriers to the implementation of benchmarking initiatives. Managers have little guidance on strategies for successful implementation and face difficulties in anticipating problems. The main objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of typical barriers that occur in a specific type of benchmarking: internal benchmarking.Design/methodology/approachThis paper systematically develops a categorized list of barriers to internal benchmarking based on the literature; and validates and enriches them with an in‐depth case study of an internal benchmarking initiative.FindingsBarriers to internal benchmarking initiatives of different types are found: organizational barriers (people, culture, and context), benchmarking project management barriers (planning and implementation, leadership, and business pressures) and benchmarking data barriers (difficulty to access/compare data). Future studies might take these categories as a solid starting point in furthering the understanding of barriers to benchmarking.Research limitations/implicationsThe exploratory nature of the paper limits its generalizability.Practical implicationsThe paper paves the way for the process of devising strategies to overcome the identified barriers. This is especially relevant because few studies to date have focused on these issues and benchmarking practitioners have insufficient knowledge to anticipate and overcome benchmarking‐related problems.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to theory building on the implementation of benchmarking in general; and on barriers to internal benchmarking initiatives in particular.