Abstract: A method for analyzing the performance of a company comprising providing predefined distinct industry types for selection; receiving the company's characteristics data comprising its selected distinct industry type (DIT) but not its identity; receiving its financial and operating data; and receiving selected filtering criteria. Then selecting peer records from a comparison database based on the filtering criteria, the peer record having the same DTT, selecting a global benchmark company record from the comparison database based on the global benchmark company record also having the same DTT. Then calculating the average financial and operating data of the selected peer records; performing a comparison between the financial and operating data of the company with the averaged data, and the corresponding data of the selected global benchmark company record.