Week 4 Weekly Reflections

In week four our learning objectives were based on the business environment. These objectives were broken down into benchmarking, accounting and financial management, using technology to manage information, and doing business in the global markets. Our learning team reflections cover the topics we seem to struggle with and those that we feel most comfortable with in and out of our professional fields. Our team discussed in and out of class the way benchmarking is currently being applied and used throughout the day to day operations that we interact with. From shopping at local retail stores to online shopping using the many different technology highways. Our discussions covered our anxieties and unknowns about using financial management practices and building are accounting strengths and confidence.

Benchmarking is the basically comparing a business or company's practices, processes, and products to that company's industry leader, or the best in that field. The core competencies are the tasks or functions the business can perform as well or even better than any other in the industry (Nickels, McHugh & McHugh, 2009, pg. 218). One of the leading deficiencies being discussed about benchmarking is the far-reaching fragmentation that can occur. By developing the benchmarking with the strategic management functions you are using considered to be using "The Role of Benchmarking in Strategic Management". Some of the components are defining the companies' mission, establishing, knowing the strategic objectives, and being able to evaluate these performances and make adjustments Prašnikar, 2005).

Business organizations have changed their internal and external structures because of the many changes that have taken place in organizational environments. Some of the changes have been how corporations use benchmarking for business decisions. Looking at how corporations appear both on the financial and managerial sides of the balance sheet, and by analyzing the huge influence that technology has had on businesses. Globalizations' effect on business has changed the world. These are many of the factors that businesses have had to embrace in past years and currently have to be involved with.

Organizations use benchmarking to measure how their business performance measures up to other organization in the same industry. In this process companies can determine and analyze what are the best practices that can be established in the organization. Benchmarking is a tool currently used throughout the country by professionals in the private school industry. Private schools are evaluating how they compare with other private schools in the state and how the students test scores compare with other students in the public and private school sector within the state and across the United States. As a result private schools are able to determine what will be the best practice to offer students an academic advantage. The process of benchmarking is currently the focus of professionals in private schools corporate environment. As a teacher, and a mother of children who are and have attended private schools, it is very important to know my children are getting an academic advantage for the investment