Documentation is an integral part of running any business, as it helps to track and control progress, note errors, and consolidate decisions. For this reason, there are many types of reports that are suitable for various kinds of problems requiring a solution or justification. The yardstick approach is one of the ways to compose such reports, and it is used to explain or provide a choice between several options by using criteria for evaluation.
The yardstick approach is one of the most convenient ways to organize information and explain to the investor or a client the differences between several options, or their offers. This approach is especially useful if there are specific criteria provided by the client that must be met necessarily. Such a structure helps highlight the weak and strong sides of the proposed options according to these criteria and compare them.
However, even if the customer does not identify specific requirements, the employee compiling the report identifies them himself or herself based on the experience and situations. Further, the employee evaluates in detail and step by step the various aspects of the product, service, or option after suggesting specific options and the criterion of their evaluation. As a result, the client or investor has a detailed explanation with clear arguments in favor of each of the options, which helps him or her choose the most suitable one.
However, there are conditions in which the yardstick approach, despite its relevance, may not be sufficient enough. Firstly, if the employee, when making the contract, did not take into account or did not have information about the criteria necessary for the client, and also did not find the exact data for each option. In this case, the report will be either irrelevant or misleading and can be a cause of a wrong choice.
In addition, if the report contains many options and many criteria, then a large amount of information can confuse the person who reads it, or several options will have practically the same results. For this reason, the information in the report should be clearly structured, have summaries for each of the options, and in some cases, brief recommendations.
An example of a situation in which it is appropriate to use the yardstick approach is the choice of a supplier for any business. This aspect may concern both the supply of raw materials for industry and medicine providers for hospitals. In this case, the report will provide a list of several options for the supplier, as well as the criteria for their evaluation. For example, these criteria can include price, regularity, and size of deliveries, quality of the product or raw materials, place of production, as well as conditions and guarantees for compliance by the parties. The report will show the capabilities of each supplier and the shortcomings that can help the client prioritize and choose the most appropriate option for his or her business.
Therefore, the yardstick approach is a convenient way of organizing information to report on several options for a product, service, or function that underlie the choice. This report assumes the selection of criteria and evaluations of each option according to them to obtain a clear picture for comparison. For this reason, this approach is optimal for reporting and forming further recommendations for any kind of business.