Standards provide support for innovation from original concept through to market. The shared knowledge and network benefits they afford help reduce costs and associated risks, allowing a business to:
- increase speed to market
- create interoperability
- shape and develop a new market.
Standards for new technologies
Standards enable businesses to reduce the time, effort and money required by the research and development of new products, while increasing the likelihood of success in the marketplace. For new technologies, standardization can promote customer confidence and encourage market growth. By standardizing at key points in technological development, this growth can be made sustainable and a climate of effective technological evolution created.
Standards support and reward innovation by defining and measuring product performance. They also ensure that families of products can work together. This interoperability is a key factor to success in many fields.
Standards in R&D
Standards offer benefits throughout research and development (R&D), design and testing, helping to reduce the expensive and time-consuming business of starting from scratch. Spending less time and money reinventing the wheel means efforts can be concentrated on developing new and innovative features. The result is that products get to market much more quickly and efficiently, reducing investment risks and enabling firms to recoup initial investments much faster.
Collaboration and shared knowledge networks
The collaborative nature of standardization includes consideration of customer and market needs throughout the development of the standard. This expert knowledge increases the chances of resulting products being accepted in the marketplace. Innovators can therefore choose how best to differentiate their products and services, increasing market value and further reducing risks from R&D expenditure.
