Using standards can offer a set of powerful business and marketing tools for organizations of all sizes. You can use them to fine-tune your performance and manage the risks you face while operating in more efficient and sustainable ways; they’ll allow you to demonstrate the quality of what you do to your customers; and they help you to see how to embed best practice into your organization.
If someone were to tell you that you can make your business more efficient, improve the quality of your products and services, win new customers and boost that all important bottom line, you’d want to know more. Using standards can do all these things for firms of all sizes.
At the most basic level, standards are simply applying tried and tested best practice to your business. They are created by experts who have the trusted knowledge that’s needed to develop best practice.
Standards encourage you to focus on the products or services you deliver, the business processes you follow and the way you manage your business. They do this by providing a practical framework for you to examine, review and continually improve any area of your business. You can follow this best practice informally or choose to get outside confirmation from a recognized certification body. But, however you approach standards, they can – and do – provide solid benefits for firms like yours.
To learn more, watch our video on the benefits of standards.
Benefit One: Standards Boost Productivity and Improve Performance
They:
- Increase efficiency by streamlining processes
- Reduce cost by minimizing waste and cutting out the time spent on ‘trial and error’
- Allow production at scale by replacing bespoke variety with standardized solutions, performance or outcomes, thus freeing resources for differentiating products and services from those of competitors
- Lower the cost of regulatory compliance and the costs of non-compliance
- Foster high quality products and services that give buyers confidence and build company reputations
- Shorten the time to market of new products
Benefit Two: Standards Kickstart Innovation
They:
- Agree common terminology and transfer new information into the commercial environment, which accelerates the spread of innovation
- Support innovators by providing expert, authoritative new knowledge, which in turn is a platform for further innovation
- Build communities and promote the exchange of knowledge, which catalyses collaborative development and speeds up technology lifecycles
- Encourage process innovation through continual improvement
- Enable organizations to unlock their full potential in terms of their products, processes and behaviours
Benefit Three: Standards Support Domestic and International Trade
They:
- Give buyers confidence that products will be safe and fit for purpose, so they are more widely accepted
- Improve transparency – buyers know what they’re getting – which reduces the costs of international trade, such as the need for repeated product testing
- Make UK firms more efficient and innovative, so they can compete globally
- Overcome arbitrary national technical barriers to trade Improve confidence and transparency throughout complex and often multinational supply chains
Key Standards to Benefit Your Business
Maintain fundamentals – use BS EN ISO 9001, to create your own unique quality management system (QMS), BS 13500 to benchmark and optimize your corporate governance and BS ISO 31000 to manage risks.
Secure supply chains and keep business going – use BS ISO 28000 to identify critical supply chain risks and build protective procedures to mitigate them. Understand and prioritize operational threats with BS EN ISO 22301, which provides a framework with which to control and reduce potential hazards.
Protect your information – the coronavirus pandemic was exploited by cybercriminals. Constant vigilance is required to counter deliberate or accidental data breaches and cyberattacks. Keep vital information safe with BS EN ISO/IEC 27001.
Nurture and inspire your people – recovery needs talented and engaged employees. Protect your people with BS EN ISO 45001 for health and safety, and the upcoming ISO 45003 for psychological wellbeing. Nurture staff with BS 76000 and PD 76006 to help align their aspirations with company goals. Build a culture that recognizes and respects all differences with BS 76005.
Prioritize responsible business – BS EN ISO 26000 provides guidance on social responsibility, while BS EN ISO 14001 outlines a sustainability framework to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Start reaping the benefits of standards today, by browsing our range and adding all the key business standards to your collection.
