Benchmarking involvesA. comparing how different companies perform various value chain activities and then making cross-company comparisons of the costs of these activities. B. comparing the best practices in one industry against the best practices in another industry. C. studying whether a company's resource strengths are more or less powerful than the resource strengths of rival companies. D. tracking the profit margin along with the value-creating activities. checking whether a company has achieved more of its financial and strategic objectives over the past five years relative to the other firms it is in direct competition with.

Letter A is correct. Comparing how different companies perform various value chain activities and then making cross-company comparisons of the costs of these activities.

Explanation:

The most suitable alternative to this question is letter A, because the definition Benchmarking can be defined as the process and search for in-depth knowledge about your competitors and the way they carry out their activities.

It consists of investigating competitors in order to compare operations, products and services between a company and its main competitors. Through the research of competitors it is possible to better understand the market and adapt the best practices to be successful, in addition to achieving continuous improvement of processes, in addition to reducing errors and costs through the analysis and knowledge of the actions of competing companies.