University Licensing undertook a program of industry benchmarking for the July 1997 report. This allowed the department to compare itself to other licensing service provided by institutions of higher education.

This first attempt at benchmarking involved working closely with another major university's licensing department and tailoring a survey to be completed by licensees. The survey was blind in that nowhere was there information requested to identify an individual respondent. Self-addressed stamped envelopes were used to again help keep licensee identity masked.

Nearly two-thirds of the firms responded. Results show that the University ranks much above the industry norm in areas of artwork/product approval, marketing support/information, industry awareness and problem resolution.

Future benchmarking efforts will be more operational than customer-oriented. Some specific processes have been tentative identified. These include entrance into a more aggressive electronic data interface environment for licensee reporting, electronic versus camera-ready artwork, licensing committee structural review and imaging opportunities within the office.

Further information my be obtained by contacting: