CFO Paradigm · Example company: Cawan's Shoes
What it means

Comparing your metrics against peers or industry leaders.

Why it matters

Reveals gaps you can't see in your own numbers.

How to calculate — with Cawan's Shoes

Cawan's benchmarks 7 KPIs against 5 peers (Nike, Adidas, Puma, ASICS, On Running): Cawan's Peer Median Gap • Gross margin 50.0% 47.0% +3.0 ✓ • Operating margin 20.0% 13.5% +6.5 ✓ • Inventory days 73 88 −15 ✓ • DTC mix 38% 42% −4 ✗ • R&D / revenue 5.0% 6.2% −1.2 ✗ • Revenue / employee $119k $148k −$29k ✗ • ROIC 15.0% 11.0% +4.0 ✓ Takeaways: pricing and margin discipline strong; productivity per employee and R&D intensity are the gaps.

What's at stake if you ignore this

Without benchmarks you can't tell 'good' from 'good enough.'