An association in the Service of Cooperation

Standards facilitate communication, coordination, and ultimately cooperation. The term is derived from the historical «Standarte», a visible emblem that served as a guide already in ancient times, helping soldiers maintain an overview in the chaos of battle.

Today, standards are the core business of SQS and serve a similar, albeit much more peaceful purpose: They create clarity in a complex world. As a leading conformity assessment body, we test independently, competently and practically whether companies and other organizations apply certain standards (in particular ISO management system standards). At the same time, we are also subject to international standards for auditing (again, this is mostly an ISO standard – ISO/IEC 17021 for conformity assessment). This consistent application of rules is not about creating barriers, but about creating connections. A well-founded conformity assessment significantly facilitates cross-industry and cross-border cooperation and creates a sense of accountability in a world of increasing geopolitical tensions.

At the end of this multiple application of standards, no one should be left in the lurch! But just like the «Standarte» once did, rule-based conformity assessment facilitates communication, coordination, and cooperation. Companies, consumers, and other market participants need reliable reference points. They must be able to trust that certain requirements in terms of quality, safety and other criteria are met. This contributes to trust in the market and in society as a whole. Trust, credibility and international recognition are the foundations of our economy and society – without them, neither a functioning coexistence nor successful cooperation is possible.

Together. We want to achieve this not only with our core business. We also want to make it possible as an association. Although we finance ourselves independently through the sale of our services and operate entirely in an entrepreneurial spirit, our overarching purpose is not commercial in nature. We have over 50 member organisations from the worlds of business, science, administration and civil society, as well as thousands of clients, from small regional businesses to large international companies. We actively promote dialogue and exchange on forward-looking topics between them and other stakeholders.

Bringing together the people and organizations that shape the Swiss economy and ensure its future viability: this is our guiding principle. That's why, in 2025, we organized the public discussion event «ISO Standards in Times of Protectionism: Significance for and Role of Switzerland», which featured representatives from ISO, the Swiss Association for Standardization, and Switzerland Global Enterprise. And that's why we once again held the SQS Rendezvous and the SQS Business Forum for our members and clients (see section 1.3 of this company report), where the footage for the following video was filmed.

Editorial

We look back on a challenging, but solidly progressing business year 2025 – even though we did not quite reach our ambitious targets regarding revenue and margins.

The first reason for this assessment is that conformity assessment is a cyclical and highly regulated business. After the 2024 recertification year, in which we achieved record sales, a decline was expected. In addition, government and private certification bodies are imposing increasingly stringent requirements on our processes and on the licensing of auditors. This incurs costs that are considerable, especially for a small conformity assessment body (CAB) like SQS that operates on an international scale.

The second reason for our positive conclusion is that we do not primarily focus on financial indicators. The article on the right is entitled «An Association in the Service of Cooperation». We are a not-for-profit organization with the mission of strengthening the location and performance of the Swiss economy. This is why we offer a broad range of products that are not geared to profit maximization, but to the needs of SMEs in particular. This does not mean that we can be negligent in our business operations! We must be competitive, but always keep our role as an association in mind.

This brings us to the third reason for our positive assessment: we did a good job. In 2024, we had designed a future organization and decided on groundbreaking measures. In the last year, we implemented them. Whether in human resources and finance, or along the customer journey from marketing over sales to auditing and customer support: we made important progress everywhere. The IQNET team, which subjected us to a two-day peer assessment audit in September 2025, reinforced this impression. IQNET is the global network of leading KBS. The audit team rated us as good or very good in all 31 criteria, and in nine of them even as «best in class».