According to The Federation for Small Businesses, in 2025 small and medium sized enterprises (SMBs and SMEs) accounted for 99.9% of the business population, along with 3/5 of employment and around half of turnover for the UK private sector.
So why do they struggle to reap the same benefits and rewards as their larger competitors?
For too long, the playing field between Small to Medium Businesses and huge multinational corporations has felt decidedly uneven. When it comes to achieving accreditations in particular, large enterprises wield massive resources, extensive compliance teams, and the gravitas of established brand recognition.
On the other hand, SMBs can regularly find that demonstrating mature processes across the entire organisation to achieve vital accreditations can be a daunting, perhaps even prohibitive, prospect. As such, they may end up missing out on a key asset for business growth and development.
That is why a revolutionary format is emerging to change the game: Microaccreditation. This bite-sized, flexible approach breaks the complex journey to full organisational validation into manageable phases. It’s not just simplifying the process of getting accredited; it’s actively levelling the playing field, making the vital benefits of comprehensive certification accessible to ambitious SMBs.
The Non-Negotiable Necessity of Accreditation
Before exploring the ‘how’, it’s crucial to understand the ‘why’. Why is accreditation not merely a ‘nice-to-have’ but an essential component of business growth?
- Enhanced Credibility and Trust: A third-party accreditation acts as a globally recognised stamp of approval. It instantly tells customers, partners, and stakeholders that your business is committed to quality, safety, and efficiency. Myers Clark reported that, a monthly survey carried out between February 2016 and January 2018 revealed attracting customers to be the biggest challenge for UK SMEs, with 79% of the 537 businesses surveyed listing it as their biggest concern.” For SMBs lacking the decades-long reputation of a corporate giant, the external validation of accreditation is invaluable for building trust and securing new business.
- Competitive Advantage: In many industries, certification is fast becoming a prerequisite for doing business. Being accredited opens doors to tenders and contracts—particularly in government and larger corporate supply chains—that are otherwise closed. It provides a clear competitive edge over non-certified peers.
- Improved Operations and Efficiency: The journey to accreditation requires the implementation of defined processes and quality management systems. This structured approach helps SMBs streamline operations, reduce errors, and ensure consistent service delivery, ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction and better financial performance.
- Structured Growth Pathway: The requirements of the accreditation provide a robust roadmap for organisational development. It guides the SMB on what areas to focus on next to achieve maturity and scale effectively.
Microaccreditation: The Power of ‘Bite-Sized’ Validation
Traditional, full-scale accreditations often require an entire organisation to be audited against all standards simultaneously. This involves a massive, all-or-nothing effort: dedicating significant financial investment, implementing sweeping changes across multiple departments at once, and facing the high-stakes risk of failing the final audit. These requirements are perfectly manageable for a corporation with a dedicated compliance team, but they can be a major barrier for an SMB.
This is where Tick Accreditation’s Microaccreditation provides the perfect solution.
Microaccreditations are short, focused, modular validation achievements that assess and certify a specific function, process, or standard within the organisation. They are designed to allow an SMB to build their full accreditation incrementally, achieving recognised ‘wins’ along the way.
| Feature | Microaccreditation (SMB-Friendly) | Traditional Accreditation (Corporate-Focussed) |
| Commitment | Phased, manageable steps | Massive, simultaneous, all-or-nothing effort |
| Cost | Spread out, pay-as-you-validate | High upfront investment for comprehensive audit |
| Focus | Highly specific (e.g., ‘Data Handling’, ‘Client Onboarding’) | Broad assessment of all operational areas |
| Motivation | High—achieve recognised Microaccreditation status frequently | Low—long wait for a single, high-stakes result |
| Risk | Low—can focus resources on a small area if validation fails | High—failure means re-auditing the entire organisation |
The Great Equaliser: Bridging the Resource Gap
Microaccreditation addresses the core resource disadvantages faced by SMBs, allowing them to gain world-class validation without the corporate budget or bandwidth.
1. Financial Agility and Risk Mitigation
For large corporations, scheduling a comprehensive, five-figure audit is a manageable event. For an SMB, that investment carries significant financial risk, especially if they fail. As Startups describes, “from rising business rates to minimum wage increases, economic pressures continue to be a significant hurdle for UK businesses.”
Tick’s Microaccreditation format allows SMBs to spread the investment over time. By validating one function at a time, the cost is incremental, and the resources required (e.g., staff time for documentation) are highly contained. This financial agility means smaller businesses can maintain cash flow while working towards their ultimate compliance goals.
2. Focused Implementation and Reduced Strain
Instead of halting core business operations to revamp every system for a full-scale audit, SMBs can tackle the accreditation process department by department or process by process.
For instance, an SMB can focus first on achieving their ‘Data Security’ Microaccreditation. Once that is validated and certified, they can move to ‘Sustainable Procurement’ next, and so on. This phased approach allows the team to dedicate their limited compliance bandwidth to one area at a time, significantly reducing operational disruption and staff burnout—a critical factor for smaller teams who are already wearing many hats.
3. Immediate Recognition and Marketing Leverage
A small business may take a year or more to reach the required maturity for a full organisational accreditation. In that time, they have no formal recognition of their progress. Microaccreditation changes this.
By gaining official Microaccreditation for core functions, SMBs receive a recognised, marketable credential sooner. This provides immediate credibility that can be used in proposals, on their website, and in marketing materials. They don’t have to wait for the final certificate; they can start building trust with certified, incremental achievements, helping them win business now against larger, unaccredited competitors.
A Credible Future for Every Business
In summary, microaccreditation is more than just a procedural change; it’s a strategic tool for accessible quality assurance. It takes the powerful signal of trust and quality associated with full organisational accreditation and repackages it into a flexible, phased approach that is inherently suited to the structure, financial realities, and ambitious nature of the Small to Medium Business.
By embracing this incremental, cost-effective, and focused model, SMBs are no longer excluded from the benefits of certification. They can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the biggest names in their industry, equipped with the validated processes necessary to build lasting customer trust, win high-value contracts, and achieve sustainable, long-term growth. The playing field has been levelled—and the rise of the accredited SMB is just beginning.
To learn more about how you can pursue accreditation for you business, visit our Get Accredited Now page.