SBS Annual Report 2025: Reinforcing the Voice of SMEs in Standardisation
SBS is pleased to announce the publication of its Annual Report 2025, looking back on a year in which SBS continued its efforts to secure a voice for SMEs in a rapidly changing economic and standardisation environment. Throughout the year, SBS reinforced its role as a key stakeholder, ensuring that standards serve as an effective tool for SMEs.
Expanding into Emerging Technologies
In addition to the traditional sectors where SBS continues to support SMEs’ market access and competitiveness, 2025 saw SBS become a reliable partner in emerging technologies, including digitalisation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and green technologies, where standards play a critical role in guiding these new fields. SBS now counts over 75 experts appointed to 290 Technical Bodies at European and international level, with new fields added to our portfolio this year, including Sustainable Cities, eHealth, Quantum Technologies, and Non Active Medical Devices. Through this expanded expertise, SBS ensured that standards continue to integrate the reality and needs of SMEs. Our Annual Conference on empowering SMEs in the renewable energy sector further underscored our commitment to sectors that are critical to Europe’s future.
Making the Impact of Standards Concrete
Standards often seem technical or abstract, but their impact on businesses is very concrete. They lower costs, reduce errors, and accelerate time to market. They ensure consistent quality and allow products and services to travel freely across borders. For SMEs in particular, this translates into easier access to new markets, smoother regulatory compliance, and increased credibility with partners and customers.
In 2025, SBS organised a range of activities to demonstrate this impact directly to small businesses, including a workshop on digital transformation, a webinar on Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds, our recurring ICT and Lift Forums, and practical tools such as the PPE compendium and updated SME guides. Through the Meeting Standards campaign, SBS engaged 770,000 people over the course of the year, continuing to shine a light on the essential contribution of standardisation to Europe’s economic competitiveness and resilience.
Shaping Standardisation Policy
SBS actively participated in the revision of Regulation 1025/2012, working to ensure that the European standardisation system remains inclusive and recognises that integrating SME needs into standards is critical to the effective implementation of industrial policies. SBS also continued to support education and skills initiatives aimed at increasing SMEs’ understanding of the importance of standards in business strategy. At the High Level Forum, SBS presented its final report on national inclusiveness and contributed to discussions on education, reinforcing its role as a key player in shaping standardisation policy at European level.
Strengthening Institutional Cooperation
As in previous years, SBS continued to deepen its relationship with the European Standardisation Organisations, serving as an active contributor to the governing and technical bodies of CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI. On the international scene, SBS strengthened its institutional cooperation with ISO to bring the importance of SMEs to the foreground of international standardisation. In 2025, this included SBS’s participation in the Making All Voices Heard a Reality interactive workshop, organised during the ISO Annual Meeting 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda.
Read the Full Report
We invite you to explore the full Annual Report 2025 to discover in detail how SBS continued to advocate for SMEs across all these areas throughout the year.
