As we compare and contrast competitive benchmarking and generic benchmarking we must first define the two. In competitive benchmarking we review the best practices of successful competitors and glean from there practices processes that we canimplement into our processes. Competitive benchmarking tends to be better suiting when time is at a premium. It is much easier to subtract information from a non faction such as a competitor than from that of a company that is of a different industry. In comparison with generic benchmarking where we take away from a non competitor yet similar successful company with similar process and take away their best practices. When conducting competitive benchmarking one might run into roadblocks such as privacy and protection of intellectual capital in the possession of that particular company whose best practices are being reviewed. One way to avoid these obstacles are publications and articles written by experts or leaders in the field. There are many business reviews or industry specifics papers that are online that can assist in these efforts. These same practices are available when conducting generic benchmarking, however one might find generic bench marking more open to best practices discussions because of the lack of threat to their particular operation. When viewing the symptoms and problems surrounding the failure of the auto industry the symptoms have existed for many years perhaps since WWII when our nation began our international outreach and we began to offer our business and entrepreneur capital to the Japanese. Early on when the Japanese began to build their auto empire they had their top level management study our auto industry and management techniques. Not only did they identify our strengths but they also identified our ...