International Trade Centre launched upgraded Benchmarking Platform

Newly up-graded platform is more effective in many ways; Qualitative and quantitative data allows for individual and group examination of small enterprises and business support organizations, offering vital research to aid in trade policy formation.

The new platform can be accessed at www.ITCBenchmarking.org .

The International Trade Centre (ITC) launched an “upgraded Benchmarking Platform”, which is a digital tool. The newly upgraded benchmarking platform helps to measure and improve the performance of businesses and the organizations that support them.

The platform has excellent features and offers a ‘sophisticated and interconnected’ set of diagnostic tools, both for public and private sectors to assess, analyse, compare and improve their performance on national and regional trade development.

It was initially launched a decade ago. With this upgradation, after 10 years, ITC has extensively expanded and tailored its assessment methodologies, and included pivotal new social and environmental sustainability parameters.

Now all kinds of organizations and SMEs or any kind of related organizations can assess their performance, understand how to improve against global standards, and connect to a global network of similar enterprises.

The qualitative and quantitative data that would be generated at this platform help individual and collective analysis of small businesses and business support organizations, producing critical research for supporting trade policy formulation.

Key features of the platform:

• Customized models that provide multi-dimensional perspectives on the performance of diverse types of Business Support Organizations (BSOs) and small businesses
• A Sustainability “Deep Dive” provides information on organizations’ practices on gender equality and green growth and other UN Sustainable Development Goals
• The “Digital readiness”’ and “Organizational culture” tools provide important perspectives on cross-cutting performances.
• A searchable global directory of business support organizations allows small businesses to connect directly with support networks.
• Capacity building and certification programmes give BSOs access to ITC’s competitiveness diagnostic tool for small businesses.
• BSOs can run cluster assessments by sector, geographic location, and other relevant small business groupings.

Source: ITC, International Trade Centre