Best practices in an industry are identified after close monitoring and evaluation of a company’s performance. Industry best practices play a great role towards company productivity and this makes them to be the best in a company. In addition, they help a company while making key operational decisions at any given time.
This means that before any company comes up with any decision it must put into consideration the industry best practices. Therefore, it is only after identification of company’s best practices that it could capitalize on them and make the best out of these practices (Conway, 2009).
In addition, the practices could be used to reinforce poorly performing practices in a company. Based on the above, I could apply company best practices approach while making decisions in a company.
It is appropriate to apply best practices while making decisions because it is possible to benchmark the practices with those related in another industry. This helps a company to grow and attain the standards of the industry it has been benchmarked with. In addition, best practices enables an organization to achieve competitive advantage because it directs its resources to its best practices.
Further, best practices play a great part in product development because by adopting the best practices an organization acquires new knowledge.
Due to the fact that new practices pertain using the knowledge and skills to apply what an organization can do best it therefore means that the success will be achievable (Dyer & Hatch 2004). Additionally, quality improvement in services and products is improved when best practices are adopted in a company.
Industry best practices have been applied by Toyota Company whereby the suppliers have teamed up so as to utilize what they can do best in order to achieve the company goals. In addition, the suppliers have teamed up with other related departments for instance consultant groups. This is meant to foster teamwork and facilitate sharing of ideas since these are some of the best practices that the company has (Dyer & Hatch 2004).
Additionally, suppliers are found in different companies and they meet after a while making it possible for them to learn from each other and improve on their operations. The knowledge is shared by all the suppliers and by the time the competitors learn of the new knowledge Toyota is always one step ahead in terms of innovation.
On the other hand, industry best practices adoption may be hard to enforce because it is not always easy to identify the company’s best practices.Additionally, it could be hard to tell what best practices are bearing in mind that there are too many practices in a company. This could also take a long time since there must be scrutiny of the practices before their implementation.
Further, Toyota Company has performed well by utilizing the best practices while making decisions. On the other hand, there could be some barriers that could be incompatible for instance formation of strategic alliances which could be incompatible (Dyer & Hatch, 2004). This is however not always the case and in some situations it might be hard therefore making the company encounter substantial losses.
When a company opts to divest itself of its noncore functions and outsources them, it gains competitive advantage because it could concentrate on what it can do best.
In addition, the company get funds when it divest and hence it could use the funds to pay for the debts or use the fund to carry out it’s tasks just to mention but a few. Further, the company saves time by eliminating repetitive processes which could delay it’s operations.
References
Conway, D. (2009). Perl Best Practices. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Dyer.H.J & Hatch.W.N. (2004). MIT Sloan Management Review: Using Supplier Network to Learn Faster. Massachusetts.Vol.44.No.3 Retrieved :< www.sloan review.mit.edu>on 27th May 2013.
Ivanov, D., & Sokolov, B. V. (2010). Adaptive supply chain management. London: Springer.