According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for about 95% of businesses worldwide and are responsible for 60-70% of employment in developed economies. However, many of these companies face challenges such as difficulties in accessing financing, high compliance costs, and trade barriers to export.

In this context, accreditation and the use of accredited services present themselves as an effective solution that enables these companies to differentiate themselves in the market, generate trust in terms of quality, efficiency, and safety, and aid their access to new markets, thereby promoting fairer competitive conditions compared to large corporations.

On World Accreditation Day, celebrated on June 9 under the theme Accreditation: A Driver for the Development of SMEs, international accreditation organizations, the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), seek to highlight how accreditation and accredited services have become a tool for a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, enabling their growth, innovation, and access to new markets.

Therefore, both organizations have developed a document that collects data from large organizations such as the British Standards Institution (BSI), which, in one of its latest studies, highlights that 35% of companies experience improvements in their productivity after implementing technical standards, and that, thanks to accredited certification in sectors like food, product recalls from the market have been reduced by 40%.

Moreover, accreditation enables inclusion in global supply chains, boosts job creation, and reduces barriers to international trade. For example, according to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, accreditation enabled more than 56% of the country's exports, equivalent to about 27.6 billion NZD dollars.

Accreditation is key in the tax incentive system for innovative SMEs in Spain.

One of the most prominent examples highlighted by ILAC and IAF in the document on accreditation for small and medium enterprises is an initiative launched by the Government of Spain’s Ministry of Industry and Tourism to promote R&D&i among SMEs, using accreditation as a tool for assessment and control for granting tax benefits. To this end, it published an order regulating how the 'Innovative SME' seal was to be obtained, which enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to obtain tax benefits for their dedication to research, development, and innovation (R&D&I).

The initiative is seen as a significant advantage for SMEs, as the bonus it can represent a direct saving on business expenses and aid hiring research personnel.  

One of the ways companies can obtain the seal is to present to the competent authority a certificate issued by an ENAC-accredited certification body. So, accreditation becomes a key tool to provide confidence in the technical competence of the certification bodies and, consequently, in the process of granting tax advantages, ultimately benefiting the users of this measure: SMEs.

Consult these and other examples in the ILAC and IAF document.

On World Accreditation Day, we at ENAC have published a new article in our LinkedIn newsletter, which has more than 36,000 followers, where we have addressed in more detail the benefits of accreditation and accredited services to promote a competitive market for SMEs and we invite you to follow and share.

Check the ENAC article on LinkedIn