Copy and Benchmarking: confusion between Scope and Tool

The story of Enrico Frattasio, a DJ from Forcella, a district in the historic center of Naples located between the Pendino and San Lorenzo neighborhoods, is a tale rooted in the Neapolitan city of the 1990s. His story begins with Erry selling fake cassettes and CDs and later specializing in compilations.

Frattasio achieves such success that he has to warn his customers to beware of imitations. Thus is born the oxymoron that helped make him even more famous: "the fake original". On Frattasio's cassettes, the words "Attention: cassettes with photocopies are not mixed by Erry" are printed, and at the end of each song it was possible to hear the DJ's voice saying "This cassette is mixed by Erry".

His cassettes cross the boundaries of local radio stations, starting to be broadcasted even by private television networks. But the DJ, who started in Forcella, does not stop there.

He manages to establish contacts with major international CD counterfeiting centers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bulgaria. Erry then decides to open a shop and tells everyone he has stopped pirating. But in 1997 he is arrested for counterfeiting and in his laboratory, 11,000 counterfeit cassettes and 3,000 CDs are seized. This is the epilogue of the king of the street stalls of the 1990s.

The real thing here is that a bunch of DJ dreamers used counterfeiting as a business by copying songs in their tape and reselling with their own Label. It is just fun fact that lead here to a controversial dispute between the profund difference of Benchmarking and Copying.

Benchmarking is an essential exercise for firms to evaluate what their competitors or unrelated industries are doing to achieve various objectives.

The process of benchmarking usually involves quantitative comparisons with peers to gain insights into how to improve their own performance. However, it is crucial to benchmark against the right organizations to ensure the exercise is fruitful.

Benchmarking is typically used to gather information and generate insights, which enable firms to make informed decisions about what and how to copy.

In New York City, car-sharing services frequently uses to copy features from one another so quickly that they become indistinguishable again by the end of the day, showcasing a form of entertaining behavior.

Copying, on the other hand, is distinct from benchmarking. In the worst case, firms may copy another company without conducting enough due diligence to ensure the copied result will be profitable for their business model.

This can lead to catastrophic consequences, such as when Delta Airlines tried to copy Southwest's low-cost model, resulting in the project's discontinuation and the CEO stepping down. Generally, copying is a tactical process that involves creating a new business or product that is inspired by another company's success.