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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Standardisation and SMEs

Standardisation brings many benefits to European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The use of standards can help them reduce costs, improve their innovative capacity, and enhance their competitiveness. The European Commission supports SMEs‘ participation in the standardisation process and aims to raise awareness about how they can get involved.

How SMEs can get involved

SMEs are represented in the standardisation process by Small Business Standards (SBS) (182 kB), a European non-profit association. It was established with the support of the Commission to

  • represent and defend SME interests in standardisation at the EU and international level
  • raise SME awareness of the benefits of standards
  • get more SMEs involved in the standardisation process

SBS directly participates in the standardisation process through European Standardisation Organisations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) and ISO Technical Committees (TCs). SBS appoints experts to attend the committee meetings of these organisations.

With ETSI, SMEs can be involved directly as members and do not have to be represented by SBS.

The SME Helpdesk

The CEN-CENELEC SME Helpdesk is a service point to introduce SMEs to the benefits of European Standards and the business tools required to access the European Standardisation System. It was created by CEN-CENELEC. It helps European SMEs understand and contribute to European Standardisation. The Helpdesk offers

  • free information
  • free first-line advice and rapid response by email
  • monthly news through the SME Newsletter
  • direct links to national SME standardisation experts
  • other support measures, including training and mentoring

Support tools

SMEs can also find support through