Baseline
A Baseline is a minimum or starting point used for comparisons. It is a fixed point of reference that is used for comparison purposes. In business, the success of a project or product is often measured against a baseline number for costs, sales, or any number of other variables. [1]
Usually, a Baseline is used to evaluate the effects of a change, track the progress of an improvement project, or measure the difference between two periods of time. For example, a company that wants to measure the success of a marketing campaign can use the current sales as a Baseline against which post-campaign sales are measured to evaluate the success or failure of the campaign.
Historically, Baselining has been used extensively in Business Process Reengineering (BPR) initiatives. It is also used in Benchmarking projects.
See Also