ISO Documents Economic Benefits of Using Standards
Its new book contains case studies from 11 companies in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Botswana, South Africa, and Germany.
Putting standards to use really does benefit an organization's bottom line, according to a new ISO book containing case studies from around the world. The profiled companies in "Economic benefits of standards -- International case studies" are in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Botswana, South Africa, and Germany and range in size from 25 employees and annual sales revenue of around $4.5 million to thousands of employees and annual revenue above $1.5 billion.
The companies also operate in diverse industries: agri-food, chemicals, construction and construction materials, electrical appliances, electrical power transmission, food retail/food logistics, industrial automation equipment, and IT.
With the support of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, ISO developed "the ISO Methodology" to assess and quantify the economic benefits of standards, and these are the first set of case studies to be developed based on it. They were done through cooperation between an ISO member body, an academic institution, a company in the respective country, and staff of the ISO Central Secretariat acting as advisers to the project team. More studies are currently being carried out, according to ISO. Readers interested in more details of the preliminary case studies can find the full versions of the reports originally developed by the project teams and summary presentations about each project at www.iso.org/benefits_of_standards.
The 303-page book (ISBN 978-92-10556-7), English edition only, is available from ISO national member institutes or from the ISO Central Secretariat (price 38 Swiss francs for paper, or PDF edition through the ISO Store).