Through Creative Insights Inc., Ted Topping creates and delivers customized Benchmarking Study Tours. This unique type of hands-on learning experience expands horizons, sparks ideas and inspires change. Benchmarking Study Tours provide practical ideas that people can take home and use, and the lessons they learn will stay with them for life.
Because the best way for adults to learn is to discover things for themselves, our Study Tour participants get to do this in a structured way. They obtain the core facts and information they need, but they also learn how things work “behind the curtain” while interacting constantly with facilitators and fellow participants.
Benchmarking Study Tour: Construction and Development
SRV Rakennus was a leading developer and innovator in the Finnish construction industry, so our customized benchmarking study tour examined the best and most interesting development projects in Greater Vancouver. Matching the visitors’ current and future projects with equivalent developments here, we arranged for 10 senior SRV executives to meet personally with their equivalents in Vancouver. Over the course of a week, we visited a different area of Greater Vancouver each day to examine: history and development; luxury residences, hotels, dining and shopping; the cost of land and transit-driven growth; zoning and urban planning.
Benchmarking Study Tour: Retail in Metro Vancouver
For the full-week study tour that we organized for METRO Department Stores, Singapore, we arranged face-to-face meetings with executives, owners and managers of 30 of the best retail businesses in Vancouver. Using our contacts and knowledge of the local industry, we helped nine METRO managers, both senior and junior, look outside their own retail category and job functions to discover some great new ideas. We made all non-travel arrangements for the tour and created a detailed reference booklet documenting both the businesses we studied and retail trends in Canada.
Benchmarking Study Tour: Tourism in Vancouver and Whistler
The eight-day benchmarking program that we organized for tourism entrepreneurs, facility managers and municipal leaders from Rovaniemi, Finland studied the complete visitor experience. To help the nine participants experience and “see” the regional destination from a visitor’s point of view, we arranged meetings with local politicians, business owners and senior executives in the tourism industry. Many of these were involved in producing Expo ’86 and the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. We made all arrangements, took charge of the daily program and guided participants every step of the way.
Benchmarking Study Tours: Perfecting the Customer Experience
For several years, we organized and co-facilitated Perfecting the Customer Experience, a unique, two-day benchmarking visit to the Disneyland® Resort. Using the Disney parks as a common experience through which people from any industry could communicate, the program helped participants to see the business behind the magic of Disney. A “learn by experiencing” program, Perfecting the Customer Experience showcased a service standard to which every consumer-facing business should aspire as it delivered practical ideas that participants could apply right away in the real world.
Now… let’s discuss the ways that you can make use of this practical, action-oriented experience to enhance the success of your business.
