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Standards and conventions

trylks

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Due to legal requirements I need insurance, I got a bunch of forms from potential insurers. One of them asks if I follow the ISO 9000, which for them is probably a good thing: "follow standards, avoid risks".

Similar to that there are not few standards and conventions, the lean x, the minimum viable y canvas, the 5 steps you need to start your own business, the 10 commandments,...
  1. On the one hand, I understand that in some cases failing at one of those checkpoints may directly imply or cause the failure of the business, and for a good reason. If you get out of the road, you may find your Viper hugging a tree.
  2. On the other hand, especially in the case of ISO standards, I have the feeling that it may be inefficient bureaucracy and lead to do like most businesses, i.e. fail. If you drive in a crowded lane, you may find a traffic jam and speed may be low, even zero.
Even knowing the standards, to then decide whether to follow them or not, has a cost in time. Again:
  1. On the one hand, if you try to learn everything under the Sun, you will die before you start driving.
  2. On the other hand, driving without some basic notions and safety may get you killed.
Which is funny for a number of reasons, e.g. it leads to an infinite regression, i.e. it is solved with a fixed point. IMHO.

No point (IMHO) in discussing further the second dilemma. What do you think about the first one?
 
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D

Deleted8v369

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If following the standard is required for the insurance you need, or if it makes it cheaper and it isn't too much hassle, then do it.
 

trylks

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TBH, I do not even know, they should put a price tag next to it, make an interactive page, or just explain.

Most probably I will choose one of their competitors, but I am taking some time to skim through forms and documentation because I think it might be a way to get potentially useful information without putting too much time, hopefully.

I thought mobile hot-dog stands were a terrible business (in terms of commandments) and with a low entry. I still think so. Nevertheless, they may require any number of licenses and paperwork to sell food publicly, entry can be artificially raised to ridiculous levels with legal requirements, and then lowered again as a business model.

4atqvw.jpg


Maybe I just had too much caffeine today to motivate me through the forms and I am talking nonsense...
 
D

Deleted8v369

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TBH, I do not even know, they should put a price tag next to it, make an interactive page, or just explain.

Most probably I will choose one of their competitors, but I am taking some time to skim through forms and documentation because I think it might be a way to get potentially useful information without putting too much time, hopefully.

I thought mobile hot-dog stands were a terrible business (in terms of commandments) and with a low entry. I still think so. Nevertheless, they may require any number of licenses and paperwork to sell food publicly, entry can be artificially raised to ridiculous levels with legal requirements, and then lowered again as a business model.

4atqvw.jpg


Maybe I just had too much caffeine today to motivate me through the forms and I am talking nonsense...
A hot dog stand will only make enough money for you to live (barely, most likely). Businesses like that are really difficult to scale. I owned a bar in Japan. Fantastic lifestyle, not such fantastic income... Especially since my staff and I consumed a lot of my own product. Don't regret it, though.

They're hard to scale, because the cost of management and staff to open another branch isn't worth it.
 
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Flint

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ISO International Standards and other normative ISO deliverables (TS, PAS, IWA) are voluntary. They do not include contractual, legal or statutory requirements. Voluntary standards do not replace national laws, with which standards users are understood to comply and which take precedence.
Source: Foreword - Supplementary information

For organizations asking how to improve the quality of their products and services and consistently meet their customers’ expectations, ISO has an answer. Addressing various aspects of quality management and containing some of ISO’s best-known standards, there’s the ISO 9000 family.
Source: ISO 9000 family — Quality management

ISO STANDARDS ARE INTERNATIONALLY AGREED BY EXPERTS
Think of them as a formula that describes the best way of doing something.

It could be about making a product, managing a process, delivering a service or supplying materials – standards cover a huge range of activities.

Standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter and who know the needs of the organizations they represent – people such as manufacturers, sellers, buyers, customers, trade associations, users or regulators.
Source: Standards
 

Rabby

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Due to legal requirements I need insurance, I got a bunch of forms from potential insurers. One of them asks if I follow the ISO 9000, which for them is probably a good thing: "follow standards, avoid risks".

Similar to that there are not few standards and conventions, the lean x, the minimum viable y canvas, the 5 steps you need to start your own business, the 10 commandments,...
  1. On the one hand, I understand that in some cases failing at one of those checkpoints may directly imply or cause the failure of the business, and for a good reason. If you get out of the road, you may find your Viper hugging a tree.
  2. On the other hand, especially in the case of ISO standards, I have the feeling that it may be inefficient bureaucracy and lead to do like most businesses, i.e. fail. If you drive in a crowded lane, you may find a traffic jam and speed may be low, even zero.
Even knowing the standards, to then decide whether to follow them or not, has a cost in time. Again:
  1. On the one hand, if you try to learn everything under the Sun, you will die before you start driving.
  2. On the other hand, driving without some basic notions and safety may get you killed.
Which is funny for a number of reasons, e.g. it leads to an infinite regression, i.e. it is solved with a fixed point. IMHO.

No point (IMHO) in discussing further the second dilemma. What do you think about the first one?

They could be asking in order to invoke a discount, or to gather more information. Answering "yes" might actually trigger a deeper underwriting review, because uh-oh, who are you welding those turbine rotors for that they require you to be ISO certified? But most insurance policies would not require something specific like ISO 9001, say, unless there was a good reason. It's just a question on the application.

Standards like this are especially important in some industries. For example, ISO 9001 (9000 is a family of related standards) is supposed to indicate that you have basic "quality management" in place to ensure consistent business processes. If variations in your process could affect your product, and that in turn could break other people's products, or give people botulism, or cause car accidents, then ISO 9001 and other standards would be worth looking into.

If you can't find any benefit to seeking a certification for the business right now, you can still build relevant controls as your business develops.
 

Rabby

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Due to legal requirements I need insurance

Probably for other good reasons too. For example, so that one lawsuit or a small fire doesn't mean the destruction of the business asset, or your personal assets.
 
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