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Performance of a company

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by aakashgupta » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:41 am
One way to judge the performance of a company is to compare it with other companies. This technique, commonly called "benchmarking," permits the manager of a company to discover better industrial practices and can provide a justification for the adoption of good practices.

Any of the following, if true, is a valid reason for benchmarking the performance of a company against companies with which it is not in competition rather than against competitors EXCEPT:

(A) Comparisons with competitors are most likely to focus on practices that the manager making the comparisons already employs.
(B) Getting "inside" information about the unique practices of competitors is particularly difficult.
(C) Since companies that compete with each other are likely to have comparable levels of efficiency, only benchmarking against noncompetitors is likely to reveal practices that would aid in beating competitors.
(D) Managers are generally more receptive to new ideas that they find outside their own industry.
(E) Much of the success of good companies is due to their adoption of practices that take advantage of the special circumstances of their products or markets.

Can anyone explain the answer to this question ?
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by pemdas » Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:59 pm
first read the question, it says EXCEPT and you should focus on the opposite to be found in the choices A-E

that is you need to find the choice which is NOT "against competitors" but for them in evidences below, A-E

the only one which works by quick scan is E. Of course you need to read the stimuli too, before moving onto choices to understand the direction of argument
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by Sharma_Gaurav » Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:36 am
straight E.
We have to find odd man out.
when i read trhe other 4 answer options from A to D, i can only get a feeling that managers should get an idea from a non competitor .
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by killer1387 » Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:37 pm
E is out of scope. Hence the answer
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by ArunangsuSahu » Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:06 am
(A) through (D) supports the Cause

(E) is the answer
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by aakashgupta » Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:16 pm
Thanks. Now I got it too ;)
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by gurpreetsingh.1982 » Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:18 am
Yeah, same here.

Paraphrasing what the qn wanted really helped. I paraphrased it as "which is not a valid reason to benchmark with a non-competitor?"

E, which talks about adoption of practices by good companies, stood out since it did not provide any valid reason at all.

Thanks.
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