Getting an ISO certification for your business is more than just a certificate. Here, Richard Dolman and Julia Watts of Glade Consulting break down some of the most notable benefits getting certified could bring your company.
There are many reasons that businesses seek to become ISO certified, but the one that emerges the most is that it’s a customer requirement. When this happens, there can be a temptation to merely tick boxes and do the bare minimum, just to get the certificate.
But, shouldn’t it bring more benefit than that? ISO certification is essentially a mark of excellence that every business should strive to achieve. Yes, it costs money to get certified, but having an ISO management system can be priceless. It brings peace of mind that your business is running to an efficient high standard and is always improving by doing the following:
- Enhancing efficiency: ISO is all about standardising processes. By systematically reviewing your processes, it has the power to identify inefficiencies and waste. This translates into increasing saleable capacity by reducing the amount of time reworking and reducing material waste.
- Increasing Customer Satisfaction: Understanding how you satisfy your customers and asking for feedback from them helps you improve. Your customers’ views are a great window into your business and the information they provide is invaluable in helping you retain their loyalty and grow a good reputation.
- Reducing Risk: All of the standards prompt to you evaluate risks and opportunities so that you can maximise the opportunities and mitigate the risks. For environmental and health & safety management systems, a significant element is legal compliance and evaluating our performance against it.
We often find that this highlights legislation that the business had not previously been aware of and, through understanding these gaps and taking steps to rectify them, the risk to the business reduces.
An effective ISO compliant management system brings the whole team into the process and helps foster a culture of continual improvement across the whole business. Continual improvement also comes about through certification audits, where an independent set of eyes can critique how well things are working. The certification auditors often have experience from within your own sector and this experience can be drawn out to assist in improving your business.
A certification audit also gives credence to the way you do business because of the independence of the auditors. This gives you the confidence, if you’re a business owner, that your business processes are performing as they should and your market trust you as a provider.
We have received many comments from our customers saying how implementing ISO systems has brought them more benefit than they initially anticipated and provided much needed focus on aligning processes within their organisations.
If you want to know more, get in touch the team at Glade Consulting Services on 0114 398 4123 or email us at info@gladecs.co.uk
