Business benchmarking is a powerful tool used by managers to help answer questions such as:

• does your business achieve the same level of profit as other businesses in your industry?
• does your business spend too much (or too little) on rent, advertising and wages?
• is your business performing as well as it should?

Benchmarking data can help you to:

• calculate financial ratios.
• analyse business performance
• compare the results achieved by your business with other similar businesses, and
• conduct a "what if" analysis.

Using a benchmarking approach, you will be able to:

• find out how well your organisation is performing by comparing it to other similar organisations
• measure and improve the performance of your business in key areas such as sales, profit and expenses
• identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business
• highlight opportunities for making your business more competitive.

How are benchmarks obtained?

Business benchmarks are produced from financial surveys of Australian industry and professional sectors. The benchmarking data used on this site has been supplied by FMRC Benchmarking and is the latest available data for these industry sectors. Clients should be wary of evaluating business performance using outdated versions of benchmarking data.

Benchmarking uses prominent financial indicators to evaluate business performance but these are not exhaustive. Many other indicators can be used to determine business performance and clients are encouraged to make use of these in addition to benchmarking. The statistics reported in these benchmarks cannot be considered to be representative of all the enterprises in a particular sector; rather they provide a guide to evaluation of an individual business or practice.

Who do I contact if I would like more information?

View the industries benchmarked and examples of benchmarking data online or if you would like more information about how business benchmarks can assist you, please contact the Business Resource Centre. 

Alternatively, you may wish to purchase benchmarking data using online payment.

"Financial benchmarks helped me determine that I was on the right path"
Alistair Roberts, Restaurateur - Brisbane