SMEs and micro-enterprises make up a significant proportion of ETSI's membership. Nearly a third of ETSI's members are SMEs. More than half of these SMEs actively participate in ETSI Technical Committees and about one-tenth hold official positions such as Chairman or Vice-Chairman.
ETSI standards committees are made up of technical experts who generally make decisions using consensus. Much of the work is done on a voluntary basis. ETSI members represent themselves and participate directly in any committee that interests them. It is much easier for an SME to influence the work of a committee than you might imagine: your time, your expertise and your willingness to contribute and work with the others in the committee count for much more than the size of your company.
BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION
Directly participating in a standards committee brings you a number of benefits. Some of them are not so evident to those who were never involved in standardization before. All of them are valuable and can have an impact on your business.
In-depth understanding
Participating in the standardization process gives you access to the standard as it is developing and knowledge of the origins of the decisions made, the reasoning behind them, and a deeper technical understanding of the standard and its application.
Innovation
By tracking a standard in development, you can learn industry best practice and keep your products aligned with emerging developments in the standard, and in the market.
Competitive advantage
Be among the first to use the latest standards and gain a competitive edge to widen your market access. Of course, it's easy not to join ETSI. Other companies will go to the effort and expense of defining standards. Then you simply download the document once the work is done - they're even published for free on our website! The only problem is that, by then, your competitors will have set the agenda. They'll have defined the standard. They'll have compliant products on the market before the standard is published, because they have access to all the draft versions and can develop their products in parallel. They'll be far ahead, leaving you to catch up. Conversely, by joining ETSI, you'll be ahead of your competitors who don't join, and you'll get the chance to build your good ideas into global standards.
Visibility = credibility
SMEs involved in standardization are visible to potential customers and competitors. Their willingness to be deeply involved in the technology naturally leads to increased credibility. They gain recognition as leaders in their field.
Opportunities to access potential customers
Your next customer could well be one of the companies in the standards committee. By being involved in standards-making you can get a better understanding of customer needs and you can demonstrate your technical competences and commitment to the standards process.
Forming partnerships with other participants
Attending standards meetings provides opportunities to meet and develop long-term contacts with potential partners and other industry players.
Benefits of common marketing campaigns
By being part of a community committed to a particular technology, you can benefit from the collective marketing efforts to promote the standardized technology and its implementations.
INVOLVMENT LEVELS: you can be involved in standardization in various ways:
As an active participant:
you participate in standards meetings as an ETSI Member, with the opportunity to make contributions to the standard and maybe even take a leading role such as rapporteur, Chairman or Vice-Chairman, enabling you to influence the direction the standard takes.
As a passive participant: as an ETSI Member you can be passively involved in the development of a standard. By choosing to participate in meetings, but not actively contributing to the standard's creation, you can still benefit from early access to the contents and have the visibility and credibility of being involved.
As a user of standards: without being an ETSI Member, you can choose to follow the progress made on a standard by making use of publicly available information from ETSI's website and portal. However being a user only, you cannot access draft copies of the standard and will only be able to see the contents of a standard when it is finally published. Those contents will have been determined by your potential competitors, and they may already have products on the market before the standard is published! Is that what you want…?
