No standard, no certificate: why you need standards as an SME
Last updated:
December 16, 2025
Your customer requests a certificate. A manufacturer will only work with you if you follow a specific schedule. Or you want to participate in a tender where ISO certification is mandatory. You immediately sense that this will cost time, money, and energy. Certification quickly feels like a necessary evil.
But behind every certificate lies something very concrete: at least one standard.
Without standards, certification is impossible. The standard is the yardstick, and the certificate is proof that you meet that yardstick. And that is precisely where your leverage lies as an SME.
A standard is a set of agreements and requirements about how you work. It describes:
• how your processes are organized,
• what checks you perform,
• the minimum results you must achieve,
• how to continuously adjust and improve.
This could be about quality, information security, the environment, continuity, construction, security, you name it.
Certification comes after that. An independent certification body will check whether you really work according to the standard. If so, you will receive a certificate that you can show to customers, governments, partners, and in tenders.
You can look at it this way:
The standard describes what "good work" is, and the certification proves that you do that in practice.
That is exactly what SMEs such as MCI, Cyberminute, Highrise Design, Comelit, FAYAT Bâtiment, or the clients of consultant Yana Toelen experience on a daily basis : their certification never stands alone, but is always the result of working according to specific standards.
At first glance, standards seem like extra paperwork. But in practice, they make certification more achievable and less chaotic. Especially if you don't have a separate quality or compliance department, standards are a kind of summarized expertise that you can rely on.
In your mailbox, you read things like "demonstrate that you have a quality policy," "prove that your data security is in order," and "ensure secure installations." Important, but vague.
A standard translates that into concrete requirements. Cyberminute, a cybersecurity company that assists SMEs with certification processes relating to information security and continuity, among other things, has also noticed this. Customers often come to us with the question: "Our major client requires ISO certification. Can you help us?" Cyberminute always starts with the standard: what exactly does it say, what processes does it require, what checks are involved? Only when that is clear does it become clear what you, as an SME, need to do in concrete terms.
Without a standard, you work with loose fragments and interpretations. With the standard, you have one clear text that both you and the auditor can rely on.
An auditor does not assess based on his personal opinion, but on the standard. This makes the process more transparent and less dependent on 'who comes by'.
Cyberminute sees a clear difference among its customers: companies that only "have" the standard on paper experience every audit as something stressful and unpredictable. Organizations that have consciously built their processes around the standard tend to view the audit as a check: are we doing what we promised to do? The standard is then not an extra burden, but the backbone of how they work.
Consultant Yana Toelen, who assists SMEs in setting up systems based on ISO 9001, among other standards, has also observed this: as soon as an Organisation starts working Organisation a standard, clear processes, roles, and agreements emerge. Improvements no longer happen by chance, but in a systematic manner. This is precisely what certification bodies want to see: a system that continues to function, not just a sprint just before the audit.
As an SME, you rarely have a large quality department or legal team. Standards help you compete on the same level as larger companies.
MCI, an international event agency, is a good example of this. They opted for ISO 9001 and an environmental framework, among other things, because international customers and tenders required it. But by truly aligning their operations with those standards, things became much clearer internally: processes became more focused, complaints and feedback were better followed up, and teams had a better understanding of who was responsible for what. Today, their certificates send a strong signal to major clients: MCI operates according to the same quality and environmental rules as the big players in their sector.
Standards act as a kind of common language here: a customer abroad does not need to learn your internal processes from scratch. The fact that you work according to a well-known standard says a lot.
This is even more evident in sectors such as construction and maritime engineering. Highrise Design, Albert Hogewoning's agency, designs aluminum structures for buildings and ships, among other things. Eurocodes and other standards play a crucial role in this.
The law broadly defines what is mandatory—for example, that a structure must be safe. But the standard translates that into concrete calculation rules and requirements: what load-bearing capacity, what forces you have to calculate, what safety margins apply. Albert Hogewoning points out that without these standards, you quickly end up in a gray area. Then you start discussing the basic principles again with every calculation. With standards, engineers, inspection bodies, and insurers have a single common point of reference. This also makes inspections and certification more predictable.
Philippe Couloumies of FAYAT Bâtiment tells a similar story. He sees regulations as the 'what'—for example, an elevator must be accessible, a balustrade must protect against falls—and standards as the 'how': the specific dimensions, strengths, and conditions. Without those standards, the law remains vague. With standards, everyone knows when something is in order. For an SME in the construction industry, this means less discussion and more clarity during inspections, testing, and any certification processes.
In the security and fire detection sector, standards can sometimes literally be the dividing line between a correct and a rejected solution. Quentin Vanhumbeck from Comelit advises customers on fire detection and security systems, among other things. Every day, he sees how product and installation standards determine whether a quote meets the specifications of an architect, engineering firm, or end customer.
If you follow the correct standard, you will be in a strong position during delivery, inspection, and any audits. If you fail to meet the standard or work based on gut feeling, you will run into problems at the end of the process. This also applies to SMEs that are involved in larger projects as installers, subcontractors, or suppliers: standards are proof that you follow the technical rules, and certification is often a formal confirmation of this.
As an SME, should you immediately dive into all possible standards? Certainly not. But if certification is important or mandatory, it is wise to start from the standard rather than from the audit.
A practical step-by-step plan:
1. Starting point: which certificate do you need and why?
Does the request come from a major customer, a tender, a manufacturer, or the government? Specify which certificate is expected (e.g., ISO 9001, an information security scheme, a sector label, etc.).
2. Find the standard(s) behind that certificate.
Behind every certificate there is at least one standard. That is the text on which the auditor bases his checklist. Without that standard, you are working in the dark. With the standard, you know exactly what the rules are.
3. Define the scope in your Organisation.
Does the certificate cover your entire organisation, or only certain branches, products, or services? The clearer your scope, the more achievable the process. Many SMEs consciously choose to start small.
4. Conduct an initial gap analysis.
Compare what you are doing today with what the standard requires. Where are you already doing well? Where are procedures, registrations, or controls still lacking? You don't have to solve everything at once, but you do know where the biggest gaps are.
5. Work step by step towards certification.
Map out processes, define responsibilities, provide training, measure what is important, follow up on complaints and incidents, and conduct internal audits. Do this pragmatically without Organisation your Organisation . Only when that system is up and running does an external audit really make sense.
This way, certification is not a leap into the unknown, but the logical end point of a process that you control yourself.
Standards are spread across different domains and publishers. They are also regularly revised. For SMEs such as Comelit, it proves challenging in practice to:
• be sure that they are always working with the correct, most recent standard,
• maintain an overview when multiple standards apply simultaneously,
• keep the cost and management of standards under control.
That is why it is useful to have a permanent partner who supports you in purchasing and centrally managing those standards, and helps you with questions about versions, updates, and series of standards.
This way, you turn standards into a workable compass for your organisation, rather than separate documents in different folders. Certification remains important—because customers, governments, and tenders require it—but no longer feels like a separate project. Step by step, you build a way of working that complies with the standard, and the certificate follows automatically.
Standards strengthen and support SMEs, and provide your company with many competitive advantages.
