What Is Standardization and What Is It For?
Standardization is a fundamental practice that promotes consistency and uniformity in various industries. It involves following set guidelines to produce goods or performances in a standardized manner. In the trading world, standardized lots are utilized to enhance liquidity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for stocks, commodities, and futures. Additionally, standardization plays a vital role in accounting practices and manufacturing by establishing quality and production standards.
Basics
Standardization is an essential framework that requires all industry or organizational stakeholders to adhere to a set of agreements. Its purpose is to ensure that all processes involved in creating a product or delivering a service follow specific guidelines. By implementing standardization, consistent quality is achieved in the final product. It also ensures that any conclusions or evaluations drawn can be compared with other similar items within the same category. This allows for uniformity and reliability across the board.
What Is Standardization For?
Standardization involves establishing agreed-upon guidelines for creating and operating products, services, or businesses. Its main objective is to ensure consistency and uniformity in various practices within a given context. For example, in accounting, standardized principles are used to ensure reliable and comparable financial information. Overall, standardization plays a crucial role in promoting consistency and adherence to established practices.
Business Standardization
Standardization is prevalent in the business world as companies strive to attain consistent quality, production standards, manufacturing output, and brand recognition.
Franchises
Fast-food franchises serve as an example of standardization in action. They have established comprehensive processes to ensure that a burger is prepared consistently, regardless of which franchise location a customer visits.
Product Standards
Many production and manufacturing businesses adopt standards to ensure consistency in product specifications across different facilities or companies within a given industry. For example, in the wood products industry, international standards are utilized to maintain uniformity in aspects like product sizing, grading, water solubility, and composite properties. This enables customers to expect consistent product quality and specifications, regardless of the store or manufacturer they choose. Standardization plays a crucial role in ensuring reliable and comparable products in various industries.
Branding
International product marketing aims for a consistent brand image across diverse markets. Coca-Cola exemplifies this through global standardization. The company maintains a unified product appearance and design theme, even when featuring different languages. This approach reinforces Coca-Cola's brand identity and ensures a recognizable image worldwide.
Trading Standardization
Standardization is widely used in the financial markets to streamline trades and financial transactions involving participants like investors, brokers, and fund managers. It plays a crucial role in ensuring efficiency and smooth operations within this sector.
Stocks
In the stock market, a standard minimum stock order is set at 100 shares to maintain consistency and enhance market liquidity. This facilitates smooth transactions, reduces trading costs, and ensures efficiency for all market participants.
Futures and Options
In options and futures markets, standardization is employed to simplify trading. For equity options, one contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock. In the futures market, contracts have predefined sizes and delivery dates. These standardized practices ensure consistency and streamline the trading process.
Conclusion
Standardization is a vital practice in a variety of industries, including finance, accounting, manufacturing, and trading. It ensures consistency, uniformity, and reliability in products, services, and practices, making it easier to compare and evaluate them. Standardization also enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and promotes brand recognition. Whether it's setting guidelines for accounting principles or product specifications, standardization is an essential framework for establishing best practices and ensuring quality across the board.