Performance indicators: benchmarking between six cities in Scandinavia

The Scandinavian cities of Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo have a long tradition of co-operation in development projects. In 1995 the group started a project with the aim of developing performance indicators (PIs), in order to facilitate comparisons between the cities. The group has developed PIs within the following areas: Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Availability, Environment, Organisation/Personnel and Economy. These PIs, compiled for the six cities, provide a basis for a performance comparison between the cities and for in-depth discussion as to why some cities have exceptionally high or low PI values. The conclusions from these discussions have inspired new approaches in the ongoing internal change processes in the participating utility companies—reinforcing driving forces for quality and efficiency—and constitute a step in the development of a benchmarking process.