Are you a Scheme Owner?
A Scheme Owner owns the intellectual property and copyright for a management product that can be taught, including the name, logo, trademark and any other associated rights. Scheme Owners are subject matter experts with something different to offer their industry and are Go-To people for knowledge and information.
Who can be a Scheme Owner?
A Scheme Owner can be a trade association, a government department, a professional body, a not-for-profit, a commercial organisation or anyone with specific subject matter knowledge or expertise. Typically, Scheme Owners want to encourage communities to improve particular quality standards, practices or systems, or maybe help meet a legal requirement more effectively than existing approaches.
Who is best to manage a Scheme?
There is no simple answer. Many professional bodies and trade associations very successfully own and manage schemes.
A certification scheme often needs to generate revenue for reinvestment into the maintenance of the scheme or other activities which further the knowledge of their community such as hosting events or funding research projects. However, if customers perceive that a scheme is primarily a money-making exercise for the Scheme Owner this can be perceived as a conflict of interest and undermine its authenticity.
Many Scheme Owners, especially government and not-for-profits, prefer to separate the ownership and maintenance of their intellectual property from the management of a Certification scheme.
How we support Scheme Owners
APM Group have a global reputation as a high quality independent third party delivering a supporting impartial service to benefit the scheme owner and their customers. Find out more about the services we provide to Scheme Owners by reading our Success Stories.
If you want to find out more about how we can help you develop a certification scheme or provide supporting services we would love to hear from you. Please contact us on 01494 452 450 or send us your details using the contact form.