The Centre for Interfirm Comparison
Who are the Centre for Interfirm Comparison (CIFC)?
The Centre for Interfirm Comparison was one of the pioneers of benchmarking; it developed the concept of comparing company performance using management ratios in projects that range from a few simple measures to sophisticated analytical studies.
It was set up in 1959 by the Institute of Management with the support of the CBI and the British Productivity Council to meet the demand for a neutral specialist body to conduct interfirm comparisons and benchmarking projects on a confidential basis as a service to management.
Its objectives were to enable companies to assess their performance against that of their peers and so identify areas for improvement and to implement best practice.
CIFC project experiance
The Centre has worked in over 140 industry sectors and has helped to establish benchmarking programmes at productivity organisations in Australia, Canada, France, Ghana, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda, United States and Yemen.
It has carried out studies in most sectors of manufacturing industry, in financial services, professional and other service sectors, retailing, in government and the public sector, and for charities.
Recent projects have included; work for the Hong Kong MTR on performance measurement; benchmarking the legal, accountancy; patent agent and surveying professions; benchmarking customer service and claims experience for household and motor insurers; a variety of studies for the water industry; lens manufacture; printing industries, publishing and benchmarking fundraising effectiveness for leading charities.
Working with ACE
Since 2005, The Centre has worked with ACE to design and operate the benchmarking project for Engineering and Consultancy firms. Their significant experience and independence means that the ACE Benchmarking results are accurate and consise, providing an in depth analysis of companies performance.
In addition to providing the analysis in 2010, CIFC also attended the first European CEO Conference, as the Benchmarking exercise was expanded to include European Participants. The Benchmarking report and their expertise helped ACE to deliver a successful event with a wide variety of topics and key metrics explored by the participants over the two days.
