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ANSI Services
Sector Initiative

  1. Outreach
  2. Industry
  3. Services Sector Initiative

Introduction

Services are tremendous contributors to the global economy. But the services sector is quite diverse, from utilities, IT, and finance to tourism, healthcare, education, and retail. Even the manufacturing sector has a significant services component—from training, to transit and logistics, to customer satisfaction. Each of these areas has different priorities, and it can be a challenge to identify standardization needs, where they overlap, and where they diverge.

ANSI's Outreach Objectives

While many service providers already rely upon standards and conformance to help them grow their business and access new markets, there are whole sectors that aren’t using standards, and many more that aren’t using them optimally. ANSI works with our members and partners to identify the needs of the services sector, the ways in which all sectors are becoming increasingly service-oriented, and the role that standards and conformity assessment can play. To keep abreast of changing needs, ANSI continually reaches out to services stakeholders to answer these questions:

  • How are service providers currently using standards?
  • How can we identify service-related standardization needs?
  • Are there commonalities among the services-related needs of various?
  • How we can reach out to those that aren’t already engaged?
  • Is it possible to develop a strategy that responds to such a broad group of stakeholders?
  • What can the U.S. and international standardization communities do to serve these stakeholders?

Services Resources from the Standards Community

ISO's strategy for service standardization was developed to make sure the tools the world needs to support global trade in services are developed. From financial transactions to testing systems to industrial tourism, ISO standards promote confidence in myriad services. ISO provides information and resources on the ISO International Standards that help ensure that services are of a consistent, high quality.

ISO/IEC Guide 76:2008, Development of service standards - Recommendations for addressing consumer issues, provides general guidance on the issues to be considered in standards for services.

SPRING (Singapore's national standards body) co-hosted a set of conferences on services standards with ANSI and produced this animated video for the binational events:

BSI presents information on standards for services across various industry sectors.

DIN’s services standards portal provides an overview of standards work in various branches of the services sector, and a downloadable roadmap for services standardization.

German Standardization Roadmap - Services

The European Commission’s services standards page provides links to guidance documents and directives related to the EU services sector.

Staff Contacts

Kelley Cox

Senior Director, Membership Development

Phone:
202.331.3625

Email:
[email protected]

Susan Bose

Associate Director, Membership Marketing and Development

Phone:
212.642.4948

Email:
[email protected]