Developing a world-class supplier program requires commitment and a vision to be the best Business owners work hard to make gains and strive to be the best. But how do they know whether their work is paying off? How can they tell whether they are getting closer to being the industry standard, or whether they can set that standard themselves? They have to compare themselves to a set of standards. In short, they have to benchmark. Benchmarking is "the process of determining who is the very best, who sets the standard, and what that standard is, as management consultant John Reh simply puts it. "If you don´t know what the standard is you cannot compare yourself against it," he writes, which is why companies that strive to be the very best in their fields devote energy and money to benchmarking.