Standards for better business
There are standards for every Kiwi business.
There are standards for every Kiwi business. Whether you want to boost the efficiency of your operation, improve product or service quality, cut costs and increase profits, toughen up IT security, or build customer confidence, using standards can help.
Narrator: E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā hau e whā, Tēnā koutou katoa.
[Visual: Shots of people working in different New Zealand industries. Graphics suggest where standards might apply.]
Narrator: There are standards that can help all types of business. Large or small.
Standards help businesses be better: more efficient, robust, trusted and compliant with regulation. They are a mark of good quality.
They help you win new customers and improve profitability
Standards help guide you with tried and tested good practice. They help you focus on both strategic and operational elements like safety, quality, efficiency, productivity, and resilience.
Standards build customer confidence that your products and services are safe and reliable.
Standards enhance brand recognition and help give customers and supply chain partners the assurances that your services and products are fit for purpose and reliable.
Whilst Standards are made by industry, for industry, they can also help you meet compliance requirements and show you are doing the right thing.
Introducing standards to your business can help reduce costs and sharpen your business processes, making your business more organised, productive and resilient.
There are standards to help plan for business continuity and manage risk so that in the event of a disaster, your important work can adapt and continue.
There are standards to manage information security, cybersecurity and privacy protections that can be applied to to businesses of all sizes.
And, by using internationally recognised standards in your business it can help gain market access across the world.
Health and safety standards give good practice guidance to protect people and help get everyone home safe and healthy each night.
Sustainability standards show customers you care about safeguarding the future and help preserve the world our tamariki will inherit
Standards are designed to be flexible and can be applied to all types of businesses of all sizes.
[Visual: Person searches Standards NZ website for standards.]
Narrator: At Standards New Zealand, we have thousands of standards covering all aspects of business and technology.
And we’ve made it easier for you to know where to start with curated collections of popular standards to help address specific business needs.
You’ll find them all on our website.
Prosperity and protection through trusted standards.
Mā mahi tahi, ka ora ai te iwi ki te pae kahurangi. Tihei mauri ora.
The benefits of using standards
Standards are voluntary or mandatory ‘best practice’ guidance developed by those who use them.
Using standards can offer a set of powerful business and marketing tools for organisations of all sizes. You can use them to fine-tune your performance, demonstrate quality and manage the risks you face while operating in more efficient and sustainable ways.
There are standards to help:
- become more sustainable using AS/NZS ISO 14001:2015 Environmental management(external link).
- improve performance and resilience using AS/NZS ISO 9001 Quality management(external link) and AS/NZS 10002:2014 Guidelines for complaint management in organizations.(external link)
- protect customer data using AS/NZS ISO/IEC 27001:2023 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection(external link).
- plan for business continuity using AS/NZS IEC 31010:2020 Risk management - Risk assessment techniques(external link) and AS/NZS 5050(Int):2020 Managing disruption-related risk(external link).
- put health and safety first with AS/NZS 4804:2001 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems(external link).
Discover standards to help your business
Standards New Zealand is New Zealand’s national standards body that helps develop and provide access to standards. From broadly applicable standards to those that are industry-specific, standards help guide you on the right way to do things and can be used towards accreditation for competitive edge. Find the standards you need or discover curated collections or make your own online library.
Buy or subscribe to standards and find over 150 sponsored standards for use with building and construction, healthcare and energy efficiency.
Discover curated collections of popular standards to help drive specific business needs. Find a collection to suite or build your own with an online subscription.
Take a step further with accreditation or certification
Certification represents an assurance by a third party of the conformity of a product, process or service to specified requirements. Accreditation, on the other hand, is the formal recognition by an authoritative body of the competence to work to specified standards.
Both follow a formal process based on measurable evidence – standards help determine what this evidence could look like or include. Both are a seal of approval that gives consumers — retailers, wholesalers and individual consumers — confidence that their purchases meet required standards.
Depending on your product or service certification may be voluntary or mandatory – for example and organisation claiming a product is ‘organic’ must meet strict criteria to demonstrate the accuracy of the claim. Another example is an organisation following ISO 9001 Quality management. They may wish to follow the advice of the standard to ensure their systems and processes are well documented and protected for business resilience, however they do not need to be certified. Certification does demonstrate however that they do things well.
There are many certification and accreditation bodies that specialise in particular industries or standards. The Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JASANZ) can help you find one to match your needs:
Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand(external link)