Benchmarking has evolved over the past 20 years into a powerful tool for performance analysis and total quality management. Its concept is simple: if you want to know how well your organization is doing at some task or function, you need to know how well others are doing at the same task or function. Benchmarking has been defined as “the systematic comparison of elements of the performance of an organization against that of other organizations, with the aim of mutual improvement.” (McNair and Leibfriend, 1992)