In today globalized world best practices are used in nearly every industry and professional discipline. It’s a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. A "best" practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. Best practice is considered by some as a business buzzword, used to describe the process of developing and following a standard way of doing things that multiple organizations can use.

Best practices are also used to maintain quality as an alternative to mandatory legislated standards and can be based on self-assessment or benchmarking.

Documenting and charting procedures and practices is a complicated and time-consuming process often skipped by SMEs, even though they may practice the proper processes consistently. Some consulting firms specialize in the area of Best Practice and offer pre-made 'templates' to standardize business process documentation.

SMEs can also be successful on a sustainable basis and reduce financial as well as other loses if they consider Best Practices adopted worldwide.