Please find below some helpful hints to enable your business to fully enjoy the benefits of BSI Membership.
How can my company benefit from being a BSI Member?
BSI Membership offers a range of services around standards that can positively affect your business in a number of ways:
- Improving your products and services - the application of a standard can lead to an improvement in quality in products and services.
- Attracting new customers - high quality is a powerful USP and can help with increased customer satisfaction and retention. You can also attract a higher level of customer, one who values safety, quality and reliability.
- Increasing your competitive edge - complying with standards demonstrates that your business is committed to excellence. This can give you an important advantage over competitors.
- Reducing your business costs - R&D costs could be reduced and a quality management system standard will streamline operations.
- Complying with regulations - the adoption of standards is voluntary, but they can help to meet mandatory and legal obligations in areas such as safety and environmental protection.
- Improving your chances of success - standardization can help build up a better knowledge of customers and market needs. Ventures in markets with recognised standards have a greater chance of success.
What does BSI Membership include?
The current BSI Membership package offers a range of services to help support any business through awareness, interpretation and application of standards. It includes access to a helpline service, discounts on standards, current awareness information, and access to the Resource Centre, amongst many other benefits.
How is my annual subscription calculated?
The cost of BSI Membership depends on the type and size of your organization in terms of business sector, number of employees and turnover.
Are there different Membership packages on offer?
There are three levels of Membership - Bronze, Silver and Gold - offering a range of benefits and added value services to reflect the size of your organization. All Members will receive the entire range of Bronze level benefits and added value products as standard. Silver and Gold accounts have additional services, including an account manager.
What is the helpline?
The helpline is one of the main benefits of being a BSI Member as it provides additional guidance on the content of standards. The BSI can help any Member with enquiries around British standards and other global standards, and can facilitate direct questions to the actual standard makers in the UK.
Who do I contact if I have an enquiry regarding part of a BS standard?
BSI offers exclusive access to individuals who are part of the formal process of producing standards. No other organization in the UK can offer such an essential service. Members who have questions relating to content can e-mail info@bsigroup.com.
How can I find out if a BS standard is current?
If you wish to immediately know if a BS standard has been revised or replaced, or even its price, then Members can contact Customer Services by e-mailing info@bsigroup.com.
Who do I contact if I have an enquiry on any global standard?
Our Knowledge Centre has a large reference base and can help you locate an international or foreign standard. Please e-mail knowledgecentre@bsigroup.com.
How can my company keep up to date with the latest standards?
Apart from the helpline, there are a number of other services that can help you ensure that your business is aware of the latest published standards, both nationally and worldwide:
Private List Updating Service (PLUS)
Any Member can submit a list of standards they want to track. After validation, you will be automatically informed of any changes in your list every month. This service can track 130 national standards bodies around the world and is essential for any organization that exports globally. It also fulfils the documentation control requirements of ISO 9001:2000. There is an additional cost for this service. Click here to find out more about PLUS.
Updates Standards magazine
Update Standards is a monthly publication listing all the new and revised British Standards made available in the last month. Members can also download Update Standards in PDF format from our Member-only site.
Annual catalogue
The annual catalogue contains nearly 40,000 BS standards and comes on CD and hard copy. The electronic version is free to Members and is fully searchable, providing many enhancements over the paper version. Members can use the CD catalogue to create their own “My Collection” folder and view history. It is searchable by keyword and the results can be exported to a desired format. Ordering hard copies of standards is also possible.
How can I find out what BS standards there are on specific subjects?
BSI can provide Members with a list of up to 50 BS standard numbers, titles, page counts and prices. Please contact Customer Services on info@bsigroup.com.
What discounts are available to Members purchasing standards?
Members will receive a 50% discount on all BS standards (including all adopted European and ISO standards), 40% on ISO and IEC standards and up to 10% on foreign standards.
What services does the Knowledge Centre provide?
The Knowledge Centre offers access to a comprehensive range of standards, reference documents and books. We provide an Enquiry Line and Loan service covering international, and foreign standards. We also keep a collection of withdrawn BS standards for sale.
What does the Knowledge Centre hold?
Our resources include a wide range of standards, databases and related publications. There is a complete set of all current and withdrawn British Standards and access to a wide range of foreign and international standards
- A full collection of current BS, ISO, IEC and many other foreign standards, including DIN, AFNOR, JIS, AS and a wide range of American Standards.
- Information and standards catalogues for other ISO Member countries.
- Withdrawn BS standards, BSI catalogues, BSI news, annual reports and other historical records dating back to 1903.
How can I use the Knowledge Centre?
Members can access Knowledge Centre from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. It is located at BSI in Chiswick. To ensure availability of items, we recommend that you book a visit and explain the areas you wish to research by e-mailing knowledgecentre@bsigroup.com. Our webpages also contain useful information about our collections and services, as well as further resources for standards information.
How do I order and pay for a standard?
You an buy standards from the BSI Shop or place an order via Customer Services on +44 (0)20 8996 9001. The usual way to pay is by credit card or cheque. However, with Membership you will have access to a credit facility whereby immediate payment will not be necessary. This is subject to status. BSI will then issue an invoice on a regular basis covering any items that have been purchased. In addition, postage and packaging is free for Members.
How can my business interpret and use standards effectively?
One of the ways would be to attend BSI seminars and workshops. As standards are often referred to in legislation, it is essential that you know what the requirements are and how to apply them. Members will receive a 15% discount on BSI seminars and workshops. For a information on seminars, please visit Sectors and services.
What does the Member-only area contain?
This area details all the Membership benefits available to you, together with links to relevant areas of the BSI global website. You are able to:
- view your PLUS list online
- change your account address
- access the library microsite
- download PDF of Update Standards
- gain access to the Member online bookshop
How can I make standards easily accessible to different parts of my organisation?
BSI has developed an online system (BSOL) which helps to increase the level of accessibility, flexibility and functionality clients have in the way that they work with standards. In addition, we can set up individuals over a number of sites to receive some of the current awareness services.
What is British Standards Online (BSOL)?
BSOL delivers information on British Standards directly to your desktop via the internet. BSOL is updated daily and the site includes over 45,000 current, draft and historic British Standards separated into various modules. Members will receive a considerable discount on subscription to BSOL.
How can I download British Standards?
You can subscribe to a module from BSOL, giving you access to view and download any relevant standard in that module directly to your desktop. Go to BSOL for more information.
How are standards developed at BSI?
Standards are developed and maintained by nearly 13,000 technical committees under the management of BSI British Standards. The general areas of interest include building and civil engineering, engineering, health and environment, electrotechnical, management systems, consumer products and services, materials and chemicals, and IT and information management.
How can I become involved in the drafting process/get on a committee?
All work is undertaken by members of a technical committee who are nominated by their trade organizations. The committee also includes other interested professional, consumer and government bodies. If you want to get involved in committee work, please apply through your relevant trade organization.
How can I find out about the current standards programme or the progress of a draft standard?
Projectline is a free service which enables you to search the current BSI work programme for British standards under development. Please go to Projectline for further details.
How can I make comments on a draft standard?
Standards documents are circulated for public comment in order to get as wide a view as possible. The DPC stage occurs during drafting in national, European and international arenas and is an important part of the standards development process. They can be found at Drafts for Public Comment.
How do I arrange a visit to BSI or for BSI to visit my own site?
If you’d like to visit BSI or wish to arrange for someone to visit your site, then please e-mail membership@bsigroup.com.
Who do I contact within BSI on any matter?
Silver and Gold Members have a key account manager who is their central contact. Otherwise use the BSI Key Contacts List which is available from the Membership Department and will soon be on the Members website. This will show you where to direct your enquiries.
