The International Organization of Standardization

               The International Organization of Standardization has subsidiaries in 162 countries around the world. The ISO believes that standards make a positive contribution to all aspects of life around the globe. Their goal is to ensure the quality of products in areas such as safety, reliability, efficiency, and environmental friendliness. The organization prides themself in being responsible for thousands of standards that positively benefit the world. The standards strive to make development as well as the manufacturing process and the supply and services process safer. They also have standards that work toward making international trade fairer. They provide governments with standard guidelines on safety, health and environmental legislation. Safeguarding consumers is also very important to the ISO. Their official mission states that ISO develops high quality voluntary International Standards which facilitate international exchange of goods and services, support sustainable and equitable economic growth, promote innovation and protect health, safety and the environment” (ISO Central Secretariat, p. 3, 2011).

               The ISO supplies several products on their guidelines to any customers that are interested. Products include informational material such as magazines, databases, handouts, packages and checklists. 55% of income is generated from their membership fees and the other 45% comes from the sale of publications (ISO Central Secretariat, p. 26, 2009). Their 2009 total revenue was 36,349,000 CHF but after expenditures and operating costs, the net result was 0. This is because the ISO only aims to earn enough revenue to meet direct organizational costs. In the ISO’s Strategic Plan 2011-2015, they laid out guidelines for increasing opportunities for “maintain(ing) the strong financial base of the organization” (ISO Central Secretariat, p.3, 2009) which is comprised of fixed, long term, current and liquid assets. The investments are necessary for the organizations long term sustainability as well as for meeting the operating expense cash requirements.

               Because ISO generates the majority of its capital from the development of standards, meeting standard requirements is key to the success of the organization. ISO maintains a consistent publishing amount year to year. Annual production charts would suggest that ISO’s product strategy is to be able to continue publishing at a consistent rate each year, even though they have already created so many. ISO’s distribution strategy has been evolving over the past several years. E-products, available to customers online, is one of the newer ways that products are offered to customers. Because the material comes in a downloadable PDF file, it can be sold at a lower cost. There are no longer material costs for ISO when customers purchase their products this way. It is almost 100% profits.  

               ISO’s global business environment is very good because there are many developing countries that are in desperate need of standards. Because they are one of the few organizations of their type, ISO has very little global competition. Their target market is governments and private sector businesses. “A key element of ISO’s customer focus strategy is communicating, informing and educating ISO’s current and future customers” (ISO Central Secretariat, p.23, 2009). They recently launched a communications package for customer’s top management. They host annual Marketing and Communication Forum’s. They also have developed the ISO Café which put everything customers would ever want to know about ISO in one convenient location.  They also send out e-Newsletters consistently.

               ISO’s impact on global culture is extremely positive. They spread knowledge, facilitate trade, disseminate vastly innovative advances in technology, and share successful management practices as well as conformity assessment practices. “ISO standards provide solutions and achieve benefits

for almost all sectors of activity, including agriculture, construction, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, distribution, transport, medical devices, information and communication technologies, the environment, energy, quality management, conformity assessment and services” (ISO Central Secretariat, p.2, 2009). They focus to improve global economic, environmental and societal quality.

               Management needs to focus more of the customer’s needs. The growth of an organization is based upon the organization having satisfied customers. Because the meaning of customer to ISO can be quite broad, the customer’s exact needs can be hard to define at times. If a company cannot anticipate customer needs they will never thrive.  ISO’s management needs to develop specific guidelines to help them better assist their customers. 

International Trade & World Output

The gross amount of product used globally is referred to as the world output. International trade is the exchange of securities or commodities from one country to another.  “Countries with higher income account for about sixty percent of the World’s merchandise trade, while trade between high income and low and middle income countries accounts for nearly thirty four percent of the world merchandise trade” (Motley, 2005). Studies have shown that economies that embrace open trade have, on average, outperformed closed trade economies.

The amount of world output directly influences how much international trade there is. The more that the world’s economic output increases, the more the amount of international trade increases and vice versa. The rate at which International trade grows tends to be greater than that of world output. “Since 1948, world trade has consistently grown faster than world output” (World Trade Organization, n.d.). It is thought that this trend is due to trading good becoming more inexpensive over time.

International trading patterns become broader and broader as time passes.  The most significant amount of trading is done between the combination of high income and middle income countries paired with high income and low income countries. There is a lesser but still substantial amount of trade done between middle and low income countries. Knowing how much trading is going on, especially in poorer countries, helps us to determine which developing counties have and emerging economic market place.  The more interdependent a country is, the easier it is for them to specialize in their own competitive areas. This provides the citizens of the country with more job opportunities and higher profit potential.

If trade seized to exist as we know it, the world would feel a crippling affect and cause illiquidity. As Americans, we could say goodbye to things like coffee, tropical fruits, Italian leather, German lager and Swiss chocolates. We would no longer have Lexus, Ferrari, Jaguar or numerous other foreign automobiles.  

Americans would also not be able to maintain the supply needed to meet the demands of the consumer for petroleum and gas. We would have to release current reserves to starve off short term needs. Without the ability for America in import oil, we would be unable to keep oil prices at an economically viable price. We would be unable to run cars. With the majority of Americans living in the suburbs, access to work will become more difficult, impossible for some.  The economy would be pushed to the brink of collapse with the reduction in air traffic and trucking industry due to a lack of oil.  

20.1 % of are exporting is done to Canada (Economy Watch, n.d.). Without our imports, Canada wouldn’t be able to obtain a lot of the things they import most from the United States as easily. These are products such as trucks, automobiles, aircrafts, spacecrafts, natural gas, crude oil and petroleum excluding light oils (Workman, 2010).  It is convenient for Canada to import products from the U.S. because of how close we are.

On the other hand, if you were to look at the imports of a country like China, the products would be different. China is a major importer of American goods. If we decided to no longer export to China, they wouldn’t be able to obtain our semi-conductors, civilian aircrafts, industrial machines, computer accessories, and steel making material. They would also no longer be receiving soybeans, plastics, raw cotton, copper and aluminum (Workman, 2007).

Globalization has lead to a vast number of countries becoming interdependent upon imports and exports. Without the international trade system, even the world’s economically soundest countries would be debilitated. The U.S. would be unable to obtain many of the items that they currently take for granted. Choices would become limited or nonexistent. Low income countries would be striped of income. International trade is beneficial for all involved and we should feel fortunate to be part of a country that supports it.

Motley, L. (2005, December 9). International Trade: What Is It Really?. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/15777/international_trade_what_is_it_really_pg2.html?cat=3.

Perry, M. (2011, April 22). The Global Economy’s Remarkable Recovery: World Trade and Output Reach New Record Levels in February. Retrieved from http://blog.american.com/2011/04/the-global-economy%e2%80%99s-remarkable-recovery-world-trade-and-output-reach-new-record-levels-in-february/.

Workman, D. (2010, August 5). Cananda’s Top Imports and Exports with US So Far in 2010. Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/canadas-top-imports-and-exports-with-us-so-far-in-2010-a270542.

Workman, D. (2007, June 28). Top Chinese Exports & Imports.  Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/top-chinese-exports-imports-a24920.

World Trade Organization. (n.d.). Growth, jobs, development and better international relations: how trade and the multilateral trading stsyens help. Retrieved from http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min99_e/english/book_e/stak_e_3.htm.