Standards: big benefits for small business

Sri Lanka marked World Standards Day which fell yesterday (October 14) with a series of events tied up with the National Quality Week between October 9 and 15 on the theme “Standards: Big Benefits for Small Business.”

The National Quality Week is observed as an annual public awareness campaign organized by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI), encouraging both the public and private sectors, industry and service organizations, schools, Technical Colleges, Universities and the general public to focus continuously quality improvement through special programmes and events. The SLSI had made arrangements, as in previous years, with Salu Sala to make available for sale the Quality Flag (“Q” flag) at their Colombo outlets.

In a joint message issued by Renzo Tani, President of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Prof. Masami Tanaka, President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the global standards industry stressed the importance of standards for small businesses. They estimated that over 95 per cent of the world’s businesses are small to medium sized and stated the importance of international standards providing “as many benefits for small businesses as they do for global enterprises, governments and society at large.” (LP)