Assessment, scoring and benchmarking — defined
Twelve terms that come up in every conversation about measuring a network. Short definitions, in the sense Inteliam uses them.
Business and sustainability assessment
An independent evaluation of a company across four dimensions — sustainability, corporate processes, business expertise and financial strength. The company answers an adaptive questionnaire and attaches evidence to each answer; the answers are scored on a framework applied identically to every company, every year.
Scoring
The translation of answers and evidence into a figure on a common scale, dimension by dimension. Because the framework, the weightings and the evidence rules do not change from one company to the next, two scores can be read against each other.
Peer group
The set of companies a score is read against, built on what makes companies genuinely comparable: country, size, category, dimension and year. A peer group produces a median and a distribution curve rather than a ranking, and uses anonymised data only.
Benchmark
The position of a company's score inside its peer group. A score on its own says little; placed against comparable companies it becomes a decision — which is the difference between a number and a benchmark.
Network mapping
Building one directory of every company a group is connected to: subsidiaries, affiliates, franchisees, distributors, suppliers, workshops and service providers, with their perimeters, contacts and connection requests. Third parties are managed with the same lens as owned entities.
Dynamic questionnaire
An assessment path built from the company profile rather than a fixed form. Activity, size, country and business model open or close whole branches, so no irrelevant question is asked and a group answers once at group level while each entity completes only its own delta.
Evidence
The documents attached to an answer, at the point of the answer. Evidence stays with the question, carries over from year to year and remains auditable, which is what separates a measured assessment from a self-declaration.
Scorecard
The output of an assessment: score by dimension, strengths, gaps with the evidence behind each finding, peer benchmark and a prioritised action plan for the next cycle.
Carbon module
The part of the platform that covers Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for distribution activities and consolidates them across a network, so the distribution share of a footprint is documented with real data instead of sector averages.
Scope 3
The indirect greenhouse gas emissions of a company's value chain, including the distribution network it sells through. Assessing that network with real data is what allows a supplier to evidence this part of its footprint rather than estimate it.
CSRD
The European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. One set of answers and evidence collected through an assessment feeds CSRD reporting and double materiality work, alongside customer questionnaires and supplier requests.
Independence
The property that makes a score worth reading: no owner, shareholder or customer sits inside the scoring, and the same methodology applies to every assessed company. It is what allows a supplier's network programme to be defensible to that network.
Let's look at your network.
Bring us a list of twenty entities or suppliers. We will show you what the platform makes of it — the directory, an adapted questionnaire and the benchmark they would sit in.