Small Business Standards, defender of small and medium-sized enterprises’ interests in the standardisation process

Small Business Standards (SBS) is a European non-profit association which represents SMEs’ interests in standardisation at the EU and international levels. SBS Secretary General Maitane Olabarria Uzquiano explains how SBS can support SMEs and the challenges they face.

SBS is an officially recognised organisation under the EU Regulation on European standardisation. How can SBS support SMEs in the standardisation process in concrete terms?

Being recognised under Annex III of the Regulation allows SBS easier access to the technical work and the governing bodies of the European Standards Organisations (ESOs), particularly CEN and CENELEC. SMEs and especially micro-enterprises are still under-represented in standardisation processes. This may lead to standards not meeting the needs of these enterprises, or even placing disproportionate burdens on them. By appointing SME experts to relevant standards committees and working groups, we aim to ensure standards meet SMEs’ needs. In 2022, we intend to appoint 67 experts to more than 75 technical committees. Our participation in the ESOs’ governing and policy bodies also allows us to influence the rules and policies of the standards bodies to facilitate the effective participation of SMEs.

Being recognised under the Regulation enables us to participate as observers in the Committee on Standards and present the perspective of SMEs when discussing Standardisation Requests and standardisation-related EU policies.

A big part of our activities is dedicated to raising awareness, advising on how to get involved and disseminating information on standardisation developments among SMEs and SME associations.

SBS represents SMEs in a broad range of sectors, which means you work on a lot of topics. What were the most important ones that SBS has dealt with in recent months?

This is precisely one of the difficulties we face regarding the work of SBS: SMEs are active in nearly every sector of the economy and at the same time the number of standards developed or revised each year is constantly increasing. This is why we launched a study to identify key areas for standardisation for SMEs a bit more than a year ago.

The results clearly show that topics related to the digital transformation and to sustainability are among the top ten priority topics for standardisation for European SMEs. SBS had already increased its work to follow up these topics last year. In the future, SBS will also dedicate more resources to horizontal standardisation in fields such as management systems, the circular economy and the data-driven economy. Horizontal standards can lead to undesired effects for SMEs in certain sectors if not properly followed up.

Since the EU increasingly sees standardisation as a political instrument for asserting its interests in the world, where do you see the challenges for your work at international level?

Inclusiveness is a key principle of Regulation 1025/2012 and the European Standardisation system. This is not the case outside Europe. This means that the conditions for participation in the development of international standards are different, especially concerning the access for Annex III organisations. For example, for SBS to get access to documents and fully participate in Technical Committee and Working Group meetings at ISO and IEC, a liaison agreement needs to be set up. This procedure takes several months and, as a result, SBS may lose the opportunity to contribute during key phases of a standard’s development. SBS and the other Annex III organisations are also unable to participate in the governing bodies of ISO and IEC, and it is more difficult for them to get information on new standardisation developments.

Another important obstacle to the participation of SMEs is the availability of resources. Participation in international standardisation is more difficult than at national or EU level. The ambition to increase the EU’s influence in international standardisation needs to be accompanied by the necessary resources and specific action to improve inclusiveness and participation by SMEs. In this context, SBS welcomes the recently adopted EU Standardisation Strategy, which recognises the need to increase participation by SMEs at the national, EU and international levels. This is a good step forward and also shows the efforts undertaken by SBS over the past years.

How would you describe the impact of the work of SBS so far and what are your goals for the future?

I’ve seen many achievements during my two years at SBS. The work of our experts has led to more SME-friendly standards being developed. Lots of experts have taken leading roles in the development of standards – smart lifts are an example – and have even become convenors of working groups. We’ve developed tools, such as the SBS SME Compatibility Test, to help standards writers take SMEs’ needs better into account. I see a positive trend in the level of awareness of how important standards are among SMEs, and the ESOs have also taken several initiatives to support effective participation by SMEs and “societal stakeholders”, i.e. the Annex III organisations. There’s still room for improvement though.

For the future, one of the objectives of SBS is to increase our cooperation with ISO and IEC with the aim of getting SMEs even more involved in international standardisation activity. Creating effective monitoring tools that can help identify relevant standardisation developments is another important task for us. Finally, we will be closely following implementation of the EU Standardisation Strategy and the review that has been announced of the Regulation on European Standardisation, to ensure that SMEs’ needs are fully considered.

Thank you for your time and good luck to the SMEs!