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It’s often assumed that standards are for big business and are not really useful to smaller organizations. In fact it can be easily argued that the opposite is the case.

Standards are especially important to small businesses because they put you on a level playing field with larger organizations. The national and international standards are a route whereby everyone can access well-worked out, peer-reviewed best practice. Many standards spread current technology and best practice widely, which helps open market entry to smaller businesses.

Increasingly SMEs are adopting standards and benefiting from streamlined processes, refined products, extended markets and differentiation from the competition. As markets shrink these factors are becoming more important than ever. Competitiveness is becoming more important than ever and standards are a proven route to increased competitiveness and a stronger business.

* Using standards to reduce operating costs
* Standards for better products
* Standards for better customers
* Standards for a better brand
* Extend your markets
* Reduce your risk

How can you start to take advantage of using standards?

Download Small business guide to making standards work and read Small business case studies and then become a BSI Member.

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Google has provided advice for website designers on how to make sure their site is correctly displayed on the company’s new browser, Chrome.

Maile Ohye, a developer for Google writing on the Webmaster Central blog, recommends using HTML rather than AJAX coding, as this will help search engines find the site.

And to achieve a uniform look across all browsers, validated code should be used, while designers should make sure that they have tested the usability of the site and not just its aesthetics.

‘When your site renders poorly or is difficult to use on many browsers you risk losing your visitors’ interest and, if you’re running a monetised site, perhaps their business,’ she wrote.

‘It’s possible that the clickable area of a linked image or button may change from browser to browser.’

According to research firm Net Applications, Chrome has a one per cent share of the browser market.

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SMEs have been advised to increase their sales by selling through a website.

StartupCo, a support group for businesses, says this form of selling is a cost-effective and non-time consuming way of boosting sales.

A web presence can offer a low investment growth opportunity to businesses, with potentially high returns on those investments, the group said.

Managing director John De Groot said: ‘The absolute key is the ability to generate enough traffic to the website to get the best sales end result.’

He added that SMEs should not allow security fears to deter them from embracing e-commerce but advised them to reduce any risk by using reputable providers of online shopping carts, merchant accounts and payment encryption systems.

According to a report by IMRG Capgemini, online sales in February were up 46 per cent on last year’s figures, peaking at a record high of £3.23 billion ($4.2 billion).

Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau said that advertising through video websites was a ‘powerful branding and messaging tool’ for SMEs.

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Companies in western Europe have reached the stage where they are ready to adopt software as a service (SaaS), according to a new study.

Research carried out by IDC found that 37 per cent of IT bosses polled say they would consider investing in such solutions in the next two years.

Some 35 per cent said they would look to replace existing CRM solutions, while 32 per cent said they were looking for supply chain management solutions.

“We believe SaaS spending will be directed at new applications and at replacement of broken applications, rather than at ripping and replacing working solutions,” said Bo Lykkegaard from IDC.

“European organisations seek to leverage the SaaS delivery model to reduce risk, complexity, and upfront costs of new IT initiatives.”

A recent study from BIW Technologies found that SaaS revenues are likely to double by 2011 to reach £2.5 billion a year.

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Trojans have topped threat lists during the first six months of the year, according to a new report.

Security firm BitDefender Labs says that Trojans were the most popular form of malicious threat in the first half of 2007, along with mass mailers.

The Netsky worm also continued to keep its place in the top ten threat list, with all of the malware in the table accounting for two-thirds of total web viruses.

Viorel Canja, head of BitDefender Labs, called the shift from viruses to Trojans ‘an interesting trend’.

‘Although the popularity of mass mailers is slowly receding, variants are still present and pose a very real risk to computer systems used by consumers and small businesses,’ he added.

A recent report from information security services provider SecureWorks revealed that the number of hackers targeting banking institutions has soared by 81 per cent since 2006, with attackers using the Gozi, Prg and BBB Trojans in particular.

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