List of benchmarking methods and software tools

Benchmarking requires the use of specific valuation methods. With evaluation it means the level of achieving the target for a particular evaluation item. There are general "methods", approaches as well as IT-supported "software tools" that respectively enable an effective and efficient work.

The following is a list of notable methods and benchmarking software tools.

Benchmarking methods

There are many benchmarking methods each having different analytical focus. The methods are mostly known and will be shown in the following summary.^[1]

Methods	Notes
Matrix technology
Comparison tables
Graphs: Pie chart, Bar chart and Histogram
SWOT analysis
Potential/resources-analysis
Price/performance ratio
Potential analysis
Life cycle analysis
market growth/market share portfolio
market attractiveness/competitive strength portfolio
Portfolio attractiveness customer/supplier position
Technology/resource strength
Market position/technology position portfolio
Contribution margin/cost development portfolio
Price/customer satisfaction portfolio
Revenue share/revenue portfolio
Spider web diagram

Benchmarking software tools

There are a number software tools that allow the support of different kinds of benchmarking types.

Software	Publisher	Platforms	Notes
Baromitr.com	Subscribe Labs Inc	web-based	This web-based software platform allows any peer group benchmark any performance area of interest. Data is kept secure, identities are kept anonymous and results are shared in a log-in only environment with time-series visualizations and detailed views.
BenchmarkIndex	Winning Moves Ltd	web-based
Combo Benchmark	Compare to Compete Online Benchmarking	web-based database	This web-based database is suitable for groups of competitors to benchmark individual performance against group performance. All process and performance benchmarks can be processed in this software, providing interesting analysis tools and complete benchmarking report.
Gobench	INDEC GmbH & Co. KG	web-based database	The web-based database supports different kinds of benchmarking categories (product, process, competitor / customer, reverse engineering, marketing, patents, technologies, innovations, ...) and allows reams of analysing possibilities [2]
PowerStats.com	PowerStats Limited, Auckland, NZ	web-based, automated, self-service	PowerStats is a highly automated platform intended to allow groups of competitors to contribute, manage and visualize data for purposes of benchmarking. Participants load raw data on a regular basis, and PowerStats creates relevant KPIs in real-time, making them available via self-service charts and tables via its online interface.
Workload Simulator (WSim)	IBM	mainframe server	WSim simulates one or many network terminal(s) to load a mainframe computer system by executing programmed scripts, for functional testing, system testing, regression testing, capacity management, benchmarking and stress testing. It is a re-packaged, subset version of IBM's Teleprocessing Network Simulator.[3]: 19–22
Value Lifecycle Manager	SAP	web-based, automated, self-service	SAP Value Lifecycle Manager (VLM) version = Based on an internal system that has been in use for more than 10 years. After registering, it is self-service for survey capture and provides personalized dashboards. The idea being that you can estimate the value of a business initiative.
UserBenchmark	UserBenchmark	app-based, automated	UserBenchmark is a computer benchmark program that gives the user's computer hardware scores based on how well their computer performs. The website provides computer hardware ranking charts which compare performance between CPU, GPU, SSD, HDD, RAM, and USB drive models.

Benchmarking HPC Clusters

There are numerous suites for examining the performance of a High Performance Computing cluster, including

• ADEPT – 4 suites relating to energy measurements
• HPCC, HPCG, Linpack
• IMB (Intel MPI Benchmark) – gives rates for common MPI-1 point-to-point and collectives
• Mantevo – series of "mini apps" from Sandia National Labs (SNL)
• NAS and NPB
• SHOC – for accelerators
• Stream (memory b/w)

See also

• Benchmarking
• Best practice

References

1. Peter Kairies: So analysieren Sie Ihre Konkurrenz. expert Verlag, Renningen 2001, 3-8169-1977-4.
2. Anette von Ahsen (Hrsg.): Bewertung von Innovationen im Mittelstand. Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg 2010, 978-3-642-01699-8.
3. *IBM Workload Simulator ~ User's Guide (PDF). First Edition. IBM. August 2002. SC31-8948-00. Retrieved on October 29, 2015.