IHS White Paper:  The Role of Standards in Facilitating Innovation

The contribution of standards to innovation has been proven by both experience and academic research. Yet many are still stuck in a 'compliance rut' where they think of standards only as a barrier to product commercialisation. Find out how governments and business are creating markets and business opportunities by pro-actively using standardization for competitive advantage.

There have been several recent credible studies which show beyond doubt the value of standards to innovation. Among them, one by a team in the UK demonstrated that BSI's portfolio of standards contributes £2.5 billion to UK GDP annually.

Standards play an economic role in:

• Division of labour - work and process
• Competition in open markets
• Cooperation and exploitation of network effects
• Market formation
• Reducing transaction costs in international trade
• Assurance and trust between supplier and purchaser

However, for the individual company, the question is "how can we use standardization for commercial advantage?". This White Paper provides some direct answers to this question, by providing examples of where standards are being used:

• by politicians in combination with regulations, IPR and risk capital to improve business framework conditions
• by companies to track policy and regulatory change and keep abreast of technology change
• by government departments and business together to orchestrate future innovation and stimulate new markets

The paper also indicates where benefits may be gained at each stage of the product lifecycle and shows how, along with other intellectual property rights considerations, picking the right strategy could impact commercial success.

Above all, the paper demonstrates how using standardization pro-actively can lead to competitive advantage.