Business benefits of standards

How standards will make your small business more competitive

Want to make your costs go down, your products better and your margins bigger? Most small businesses do, but the trick is knowing how. Perhaps surprisingly one proven route to achieving these critical business objectives is through the application of standards.

Standards for small businesses

It’s often assumed that standards are for big business and are not really useful to smaller organizations. In fact it can be easily argued that the opposite is the case.

Standards are especially important to small businesses because they put you on a level playing field with larger organizations. Big companies often write their own standards, because they have the resources to do so. Meanwhile national and international standards are a route whereby everyone can access well-worked out, peer-reviewed best practice. Moreover, many standards spread current technology and best practice widely, which helps open market entry to smaller businesses.

Standards have been written to cover every sector and practically every activity, so there will always be a standard to help your business. For instance did you know there are standards to help you run a sustainable event, to improve your customer service, and even to measure the carbon footprint of your product or service?

• Small business guide to making standards work
• Small business case studies

Increasingly SMEs are adopting standards and benefiting from streamlined processes, refined products, extended markets and differentiation from the competition. As markets shrink these factors are becoming more important than ever. Competitiveness is becoming more important than ever and standards are a proven route to increased competitiveness and a stronger business.

• Using standards to reduce operating costs
• Standards for better products
• Standards for better customers
• Standards for a better brand
• Extend your markets
• Reduce your risk