Why ISO? How Any Organisation Can Benefit from ISO Certification
Running small businesses involves putting on many hats at the same time including taking care of governmental regulations & laws, the work force, production and sales, supply chains, financial issues, quality issues, managing the competition and many others. To be able to maintain a competitive advantage and sustainable growth, SMEs needs to consistent provide high quality products and/or services. Providing quality products and/or services all starts from consistency in the workflows, quality, and processes. They need to think in terms of continuous improvement of their business processes.
Achieving and maintaining an ISO quality management certification can pay huge dividends for your business in terms of improved efficiency, productivity and customer satisfaction through the systematic process approach that ISO 9001 standard provides. These benefits cut across every aspect of your business, including sales and marketing, planning and employee engagement.
The acronym ‘ISO’ stands for International Organization for Standardization. It is an independent, non-governmental organization that develops standards to ensure the quality, safety and efficiency of products, services and systems.
Implementing ISO 9001 quality management system standard requires you to set clear objectives for your organization, standardize processes and effectively communicate them to your workforce.
But they go beyond these as outlined below.
Identify risks and opportunities
The best way to solve a problem is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. This can be done by identifying potential risks to your business and systematically controlling them. This approach is promoted by ISO 9001 quality management system standard. It employs an approach called ‘risk-based thinking’ which when adopted leads to fewer surprises, improved planning, more effective decision-making and better relationships with relevant stakeholder (suppliers, customers and employees).
ISO 9001 also requires you to look for and take advantage of opportunities for your business in a structured manner.
Prevent reoccurring problems
You are likely to repeat the same mistakes if you don’t adopt a system that helps to record and correct problems as they occur during your operations. ISO requires you to maintain clear records of problems, seek out the root causes of these problems and come up with lasting solutions called, corrective actions. This result in less waste, improved quality, reduced costs and better customer satisfaction. It helps to build in quality at the source.
Boost marketing and sales efforts
ISO 9001 standard is based on the principle of meeting customer requirements and satisfaction. Customers are on the lookout not just for quality products and services, but also good customer experience. Good customer experience persuades them to return. This can be ensured through effective ISO 9001 quality management systems implementation.
An organization certified to ISO 9001 increases customer confidence, because the customer knows that they are dealing with an internationally certified company. Also, many large organizations require their suppliers to be certified to ISO. This is common among multi-national firms. So, to be able to beat your competitors in terms of winning over these firms, it becomes necessary to be ISO certified.
A certification can also be necessary if you intend to enter foreign markets. Being an internationally recognized management standard, achieving ISO certification will definitely boost your marketing efforts and help increase your sales. This you can ensure by promoting your ISO certification in advertisement, on your website and even on your banners outside your building.
Improve employee morale
When employees know that you are committed to eliminating waste and producing the highest quality products and services, their morale tend to increase. ISO requires that you define tasks and responsible persons by defining organizational structures, roles, and responsibilities; eliminate skills gaps in your business through regular training thereby ensuring competence of your workforce, provide a suitable work environment for operations and communicate your quality policies to employees.
If an organization fulfils all the requirements of ISO 9001 standard related to human resources which includes but not limited to training, higher employee satisfaction and motivation results. Generally, many people love to work in organizations where they are treated well, listened to and allowed to participate, and anticipate personal growth.
About the Author
Adebayo is a thought leader in continuous process improvement and manufacturing excellence. He is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CSSMBB), Digital Manufacturing Professional and ISO Management Systems Lead Auditor (ISO 9001, 45001 & ISO 22000) with strong experience leading various continuous improvement initiative in top manufacturing organizations.
You can reach him here.
