Financial benchmarking the example of confectionery industry companies

Abstract

Being a managerial tool of proven efficiency when it comes to managing companies in cri- sis periods, benchmarking concept is still insufficiently known and applied in the Republic of Serbia. The idea of this paper was to reveal its possibilities through the aspect of finan- cial benchmarking, showing its simplicity and benefits even from the point of an external analyst. This was achieved through the analysis of two biggest competitors on the market of confectionery products of the Republic of Serbia, using secondary data analysis. Through multidimensional set of performance measures based on profit as the ultimate goal, but also including value for shareholders, liquidity and capitalization, we have confirmed the leader’s market position and found its sources, which are the key learning points for the follower to adopt in order to improve its performance.