What is an example of a goal for strategic benchmarking?

Strategic benchmarking involves looking beyond direct competitors and examining organizations in different industries that excel in specific areas. This process allows a business to gain insights and innovative practices that can be adapted to its own operations. By learning from a successful business in another industry, a company can identify different strategies, technologies, or practices that may not be typical within its own sector but could provide significant advantages. This approach broadens the scope of learning and can lead to unique competitive differentiators.

While improving internal processes, understanding competitor operations, and enhancing product features are all important objectives in their own right, they typically focus on immediate operational or competitive contexts rather than the broader learning opportunities available through cross-industry benchmarking. Thus, option C represents the essence of strategic benchmarking, which is to venture outside one's typical confines to gather inspirational ideas that can drive substantial improvements and innovations.