Dive summary:

• All companies are not created equal, obviously, but that means that there are plenty of opportunities to look at what drives your profits and what your competitors do better and make improvements.
• It's not a complicated process, but it needs to be focused and have a clear goal. Four steps are:

1. Plan
2. Collect Data
3. Analyze
4. Adapt and Improve

• If you understand your own important business practices well, you can then figure out what questions to ask to find steps you can take to improve.

From the article:

This structure avoids site visit benchmarking becoming industrial tourism, where you just turn up at a company and "look for what interests you." ...