The key factors in identifying bench marking partners are the size of partner, the number of partners, the relative position of partners within and across industries, and the degree of trust among partners. choices of one of these variables will change from one bench marking study to the next.
Why these factors are important?:-
Organization will likely want to obtain in information about a firm similar in size because of their comparable situations. It is useful to have a large number of participants in order to increase the amount of information obtain. Because newcomers to an industry probably would like to see a wider variety of partners.