Comparisons with competitors are most likely to focus on practices that the manager making the comparisons already employs.

Getting "inside" information about the unique practices of competitors is particularly difficult.

Since companies that compete with each other are likely to have comparable levels of efficiency, only benchmarking against noncompetitors is likely to reveal practices that would aid in beating competitors.

Managers are generally more receptive to new ideas that they find outside their own industry.

Much of the success of good companies is due to their adoption of practices that take advantage of the special circumstances of their products or markets.