Benchmarking is a key mechanism to obtain fair-market assurance on the solution, cost, quality, and/or terms of engagement with third-party or inhouse sourcing models. It is baked-in as an intervention point in almost all third-party contracts and inhouse shared services governance.

Despite the importance of benchmarking in the shifting sands of technology, talent, and terms, it is the most marginalized agenda–undertaken almost as a check-box item with barely any rigor given to proofing the efficacy of the benchmarks.