Using standards to level the international publishing playing field

New and developing publishers often ponder how to compete with large global publishers that have seemingly unlimited resources. This is especially true in the context of rapid technological innovation. The estimated cost of maintaining a modern workflow platform is at least $6 million per year. In this presentation, we will discuss how start-up publishers can level the playing field by aggressively adopting scholarly publishing industry standards. Off-the-shelf software, such as Editorial Manager (available for a few dollars per manuscript) comes with these industry-adopted standards built in, including ORCID, Ringgold, JATS, CRediT, Open Funder Registry and more. This means that in a few days even small publishing organizations can launch web-based editorial workflows that meet the highest requirements. This allows emerging publishers to focus on their competitive editorial advantages and more seamlessly integrate into an ecosystem of services for authors and readers (such payment processing, editorial support etc.).