Competitive financial benchmarking with hyperknowledge

Competitive benchmarking is a useful and powerful tool in strategic planning. It allows a management team to compare the critical success factors of their company against those of other companies operating in the same markets or industry. Through this comparison, the management team is able to define target levels for critical success factors, and to evaluate the company´s strategic objectives in relation to its direct competitors. The methods used in competitive benchmarking must be user friendly. They must allow users to draw upon, and to quickly compare, key issues from a knowledge base. It has transpired that a hyperknowledge environment is useful for this purpose. The context used for the system development is the pulp and paper industry. A database of 800 annual reports from 160 pulp and paper companies was used as a test environment for competitive financial benchmarking.<>