Benefits of using standards

Benefits of using standards

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, while operating in more efficient and sustainable ways.

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, while operating in more efficient and sustainable ways.
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Standards help improve performance

Standards give you the knowledge  you need to fine-tune your organization so it performs at its best, day in, day out – at every level. The results are tangible growth and increased profits.

BSI was the first national standards body in the world, and the first to develop a standard for quality – now familiar the world over as ISO 9001. Organizations that use our standards have more satisfied customers, more efficient ways of working, better cost control and are able to implement new working practices faster and more effectively.

Using our standards can help you improve the quality of your services, manage projects so they meet deadlines and stay within budget, strengthen the resilience of your IT systems, certify your products so they attract more customers, manage your assets better, and build successful collaborative relationships with other organisations.

Working with standards can help you to depend on every member of staff, from the boardroom to reception, to be driving the performance of the business at all times. And once you’ve met the demands of the standard, certification allows you to promote it, making you stand out from the crowd.

Reducing risk using standards

Serious accidents, IT security breaches, fire, floods, loss of suppliers, extreme weather – any of these can cripple a business, and many never recover. Using standards systematically prepares you in advance so threats like these, and many others you may never have considered, are far less likely to hit you, or can even be turned into opportunities

If an incident does occur, your down time and all the other costs of recovery will be significantly reduced. But tackling risk can do much more for your business.

By understanding the risks you face and then acting to mitigate them, you become a tougher, more resilient business, able also to respond to and build upon new opportunities. If a problem does arise, or if you and your competitors face industry-wide challenges, you are better equipped to survive the initial problem and then rapidly recover, gaining market share as you do.

And that’s not all. By tackling your risks you’ll enhance your reputation, give your customers greater confidence, win new business and very likely reduce your costs. Above all you’ll understand more accurately how your business works and what its success depends on.

Save energy, money and the environment

Sustainability has never been more important. But at the same time, people are more cynical than ever about ‘green’ marketing claims. They want to see proof of your commitment to tackling environmental and social challenges.

Implementing our standards can help you to demonstrate your credentials to customers, employees and stakeholders, and showcase your commitment to sustainable development. 

We produced the world’s first environmental management standard in 1992, and since then we’ve led the way in developing new standards such as energy management and sustainable event management.

Today we can help you deliver substantial environmental, economic and social benefits, whatever your size, sector or geographical location. We can help you identify and manage the impact of your business on the environment and community, understand relevant legislation, and most importantly use resources more efficiently by implementing powerful policies across your organization. This not only helps the environment, it makes a real difference to your bottom line. 

Standards encourage innovation

Businesses looking to commercialize emerging technologies are part of a developing business ‘ecosystem’, and the stronger they can exploit the networks within the ecosystem, the faster the market for their products will grow.

The development of standards can help an emerging technology ecosystem rally round the issues to promote successful commercialization of new products. This is why standards can make such a difference to the success of innovative businesses: they create a common framework for innovation and establish the ‘rules of the game’. Standards set the framework by defining common vocabularies, establishing the essential characteristics of a product or service, and by identifying the best practice within the ecosystems that will ensure successful outcomes.

Once these rules are in place, the pace of innovation will be accelerated and success will be much more likely.

  • You’re less likely to duplicate what’s already been produced, allowing you to concentrate on the activities within your business and product that really add value.
  • Your product or service will more easily be integrated with the rest of the ecosystem.
  • Investors have more confidence that the innovation will be successful.

New standards are being developed all the time as new sectors, markets and business models emerge, and the sooner these standards are in place, the faster and more efficiently growth occurs. 

Standards ensure quality services

Standards can help you plan, design and deliver services which will work from launch. They help you embed reliable processes, systems and – crucially – behaviors. The standards can take the form of specifications, guidelines, methodologies for particular tasks, and terms and definitions (which help your systems draw on global best practice). 

Almost any organization involved in delivering or procuring services will see value from standards designed to help embed quality processes, policies and procedures and to help reduce risks to customers and clients.  

BSI has also developed a number of standards working with specific service industries in order to set the benchmarks for good practice, professionalism and to help provide assurance to customer and ensure their expectations are met.