ISO Releases Case Studies on benefits of standardization.
Press Release Summary:
ISO published second volume of Economic Benefits of Standards. This book-length work compiles 10 case studies of companies from 9 countries demonstrating that consistently implementing standards provides benefits, regardless of company's size, business sector, or country in which they are based. Studies have been carried out by ISO's Central Secretariat in Geneva in cooperation with ISO national members and academic institutions.
Original Press Release:
ISO Releases Case Studies on the Benefits of Standardization
By Roger Frost, originally published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recently published the second volume of Economic Benefits of Standards, a book-length work compiling a collection of case studies demonstrating that consistently implementing standards provides benefits for companies, regardless of their size, business sector, or the country they are based in. The studies found a wide variety of quantified benefits associated with comprehensive use of standards, including:
Streamlining internal company processes
Decreasing waste and internal costs
Increasing the efficiency of research & development
Innovating business processes
Reducing risk
Enabling international expansion
Supporting development of new products and markets
This new compilation includes 10 case studies of companies from nine countries: Mauritius, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, China, Cameroon, Senegal, and Italy. The first volume of Economic Benefits of Standards, published in 2011, examined 11 companies operating in a variety of business sectors in 10 countries. The size of the companies varies from small enterprises with 25 employees and annual sales revenues of around USD 4.5 million, to those with several thousand employees and annual revenues of over USD 2 billion. Overall, the 21 case studies demonstrate that the benefits of using standards are valued, in terms of contribution to company gross profit, at between 0.15% and 5% of annual sales revenues.
The studies have been carried out by ISO's Central Secretariat in Geneva in cooperation with ISO national members and academic institutions. They are based on “the ISO Methodology” for the assessment and quantification of the economic benefits of standards. The new book includes a description of the methodology, which was developed by ISO in cooperation with Roland Berger Consultants.
Free PDF files of the studies contained in Volumes 1 and 2 can be accessed here.
