Approach for designing and distributing services through standardization

In the era of globalization and the central objective of each company, which is no doubt the economic efficiency, one way to achieve this is standardization. Concerning industrial products, many standards within companies as well as within consortia are developed and in use for years. International standards set the conditions for free and fair trade, promote international competition, the opening of markets and deregulation. Furthermore, they support economic growth and protect the consumer. These advantages are appropriate for industrial products as well as for services. Nonetheless, there are not many and sufficient service standards yet. Possible reasons for this lack can be seen in the feature characteristics of services on the one hand and in the knowledge deficit in companies about what and how to standardize services on other hand. This paper/presentation is meant to support by giving examples for potential, strategies and methods for internal and external standardization found out in the industry and in research projects.