The 11th Global Benchmarking Award will be held as part of the 12th International Best Practice Competition. This is a virtual event that includes the 5th Environmental, Social, & Governance (ESG) Excellence Award and 8th Organisation-Wide Innovation Award. The GBN Benchmarking Award will be staged as follows:
1st Calls for submission deadline: Monday 8 May 2026
Awards Final: 3 September 2026
The Global Benchmarking Award encourages organisations to share how benchmarking (learning and applying best practices) is an integral part of their improvement and innovation drive.
The GBN’s Global Benchmarking Award was designed by Benchmarking Partnerships (Australia), BestPrax Club (India) and COER (New Zealand) on behalf of the GBN. It was first trialed in India in 2010 and first awarded in New Zealand in December, 2012. COER organises the Global Benchmarking Award on behalf of the GBN.
The Global Benchmarking Award assesses these 4 areas:
- Leadership commitment to benchmarking
- Pervasiveness of benchmarking
- Formality of benchmarking
- Results achieved
Benchmarking approaches graded 4-Star ★ ★ ★ ★ and above are at an Excellence Level:
- Role Model, World-Class, Wow! (7 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Outstanding at an International Level (6 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Excellence at an International Level (5 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Excellence at a National Level (4 Stars, ★ ★ ★ ★)
- Competence (Professional) (3 Stars, ★ ★ ★)
- Progressing (Minor Deficiencies) (2 Star, ★ ★)
- Deficient (Major Deficiencies) (1 Star, ★)