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Although companies spend millions annually on CEO compensation advice, very few decide to invest in benchmarking internal CEO talent against external candidates. Yet benchmarking plays a key role in the succession planning process, write George L. Davis and Justus O'Brien, both consultants at Egon Zehnder International, in the U.S. magazine BusinessWeek. CEO benchmarking involves continually assessing internal and external candidates against company-specific challenges and should be an ongoing process. "Benchmarking can provide the basis for making an informed decision about the trade-off between an internal successor with knowledge of the business and an external successor with precisely the skills that the company will require," add the authors. They describe benchmarking CEO talent as a "highly structured, systematic procedure that requires both science and art." In their experience, best practices include defining the CEO's job specifications in terms of the company's future strategy, ensuring objective, uniform analysis of internal and external candidates and using the results to guide development activities for internal applicants.