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“If you think about our catalogue of domestic standards, 15 years ago we used to have more than 5,000 standards in our catalogue. We have approximate- ly 2,900 now and the trend is to have fewer domestic standards,” says Michel Girard, vice president of SCC’s Strategy Branch. “We rely more and more on re- gional or international standards and whether it is in sectors such as forestry or mining, or to support the export of products and ensure safety, more and more we are seeing that you need to comply with regional and international standards if you want to succeed.”EMBRACING STANDARDS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCEA recent independent report com- missioned by the British Standards In- stitution (BSI) provides the facts to back up Girard’s point. The report surveyed 527 UK businesses, across seven major sectors, to determine the impact of stan- dards. The conclusion was simple — investing in standards pays dividends for the organizations that use them. In the United Kingdom, small and medi- um-sized enterprises (SMEs) are 41 per cent more likely to export and largeNovember, 2015 | Canadian Industry Online |81