The integration of management systems, to be effective, requires several organisational features. An
integrating concept enabling a common language, a proactive approach, a holistic vision, sustainable
objectives and consistence and coherence on action are among those features. All these features will be
properly and efficiently achieved considering concepts linked to benchmarking, namely, teammanship,
self-management, democracy in management and collaborative benchmarking. This paper is based on an
ongoing research project focusing the development of a tool/methodology to assess maturity and
effectiveness levels achieved by organizations that implemented an integrated management system (IMS)
being its purpose to report and to enhance the potential synergies between benchmarking methodologies
and management systems integration. The research, and implicit results, aims organizations that are
considering an IMS implementation being the findings transferable to in field environment, being useful to
practitioners willing to implement an IMS
