A study on benchmarking understanding,knowledge and implementation barriers in malaysian oil palm industry

This paper is based on a survey conducted on top management’s benchmarking understanding,awareness and barriers in the malaysian oil palm industry. the two main objectives of this paper are: firstly,to investigate the level of understanding and knowledge; secondly,to identify the barriers that could hinder and disrupt the benchmarking implementation in the malaysian oil palm industry. a survey questionnaire tested for reliability and validated by experts and practitioners was developed and distributed through postal mail and email to 700 respondents involved in the oil palm industry. survey results revealed that 77.9% of them are still in the moderate category,8.1% in the low category and only 14% have good benchmarking understanding and knowledge. survey results also showed that the three main barriers faced during the benchmarking implementation are due to: lack of understanding on the benchmarking knowledge,lack of clarity with regard to specific areas to be benchmarked and top management culture. © 2015 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.