Every industry has its own set of standards and regulations that the business must comply with in order to be deemed credible and trustworthy by customers. Depending on the industry you operate in, the standards might differ. Here are some of the major industries and the international standards that businesses in these industries must look into.
Technology Infrastructure
If you are a business that offers web hosting services, document storage services or broadband services, then one of the major areas to look into is business continuity. Customers availing these services want to be sure that their data is not lost when a major service failure occurs. Also, these customers need to be assured that your services would continue to remain available despite major server outages. Business continuity planning is a major path forward in this regard and standards that certify your disaster preparedness include ISO 22301:2012, BS 25999, ASIS/BSI BCM.01.2010 and HB 292-2006.
Financial Services
When you invest your money in a financial institution, you do so with the belief that they would not squander the money away in highly speculative investments. As an investor, you are looking for safe but steady growing investments. You also want to be sure that the financial institution operates on adequate cash flow and only takes optimal liquidity risk. Standards that benchmark financial institutions on these metrics include Basel III and Volcker rule – these standards mandate institutions to have supervisory authorities who are responsible for ensuring safe investments and adequate cash flow.
Manufacturing Industries
If you are in the business of manufacturing products for customers, you need to ensure that the products you make are of good quality and not defective. One of the most popular standards to certify your organization for product quality is Six Sigma certification. This certification assures your customers that your business produces less than 3.4 defective pieces for every 1 million manufactured parts. In percentage terms, that is a 99.99966% chance that the products are not defective.
IT Services
One of the most common technology industries is IT services where small and medium businesses work on providing specific IT related services to customers. Customers for these service companies look for proper protocols to be followed with respect to the service delivery and control processes. In 2005, ISO developed a new certification process called the ISO/IEC 20000 that was built on top of the prevailing BS 15000 standard to monitor the quality of delivery from IT service management companies.
These certifications cost a lot of money and it may not be possible for all businesses to afford it. However, for businesses looking to grow to the next stage, such certifications are absolutely necessary and is a way to sell the quality of your service to your customers. Have you gone through the certification process for your business? Tell us your experience in the comments.
Images: “rules and regulations marked on rubber stamp / Shutterstock.com“
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