Globalization has made the market more demanding and competitive, which has led companies to start a path towards innovation through ISO 9001, without losing focus on their objectives.
Nowadays it is not enough for an organization to be good, but it must strive for excellence to be among the competition.
Taking into account that quality is a key factor for competitiveness in any market, companies are turning to strategies that represent an added value for their service compared to the competition, such as quality certifications, which leads to know the standards of the International Organization for Standardization known by the acronym ISO, which arises as a response to the requirements of the systems in different areas of organizations or companies.
There are currently more than 22,000 different ISO standards and this time we will talk about ISO 9001 and how it benefits organizations that implement the standard.
What is ISO 9001? It is a standard that establishes the requirements that a company must meet in order to have a correct quality management system in place in its production system. It can focus on both long-term projects and daily activities and seeks to increase customer satisfaction by optimizing the tasks that occur during the processes.
Any organization, regardless of its size, can participate in the implementation of the standard, as long as it complies with all the requirements established for certification. Being an international certification can be found in more than 175 countries with more than 1.5 million users around the world, present in 5 continents.
At this moment, at Interfaz we are one of the companies that are on the road to ISO certification with an Integrated Management System between quality and information security (ISO 9001 and ISO 27001). The process began in August 2020 with a general diagnosis of the company and has a professional consultancy that guides and trains the collaborators of the different processes involved in the scope of the project.
Through this process, opportunities for improvement have arisen for the performance of daily activities in the company and we try to ensure that every day the employees implement the learning obtained from the standards. For us it is of utmost importance that our clients feel peace of mind and security when doing business or acquiring a product from the organization.
The company’s goal is to always offer quality services and customer satisfaction, and for this reason we strive for excellence through new strategies that keep the company within the competitive market. The organization’s goal is to obtain certification by the end of 2021 and thus increase customer support and create new business opportunities.
As mentioned above, as well as Interfaz, more and more countries and companies are voluntarily joining the ISO 9001 family, which has become one of the most recognized and sought-after certifications, most frequently by companies engaged in manufacturing.
By the end of 2019, according to the latest annual ISO Survey, there were a total of 883,521 companies worldwide certified in the ISO 9001 international standard, an amount that represents 4,857 more companies compared to two years ago, and each year more organizations are expected to seek certification.
Recently the statistics of the worldwide impact place China in first place as the country with the most ISO 9001 certified companies, with more than 350,000 certificates, followed by Italy with more than 150,000 certified companies and in third place is Germany with more than 66,000 certifications.
Benefits of ISO-9001
ISO 9001 is the most widely implemented standard because it is the best known and is based on good quality practices and an integrated management system (IMS), which is what companies are generally looking for, which strategically decide to start with the implementation of this system before the rest, for its benefits of standardization of processes, since once organized, a more effective management for the other standards to be implemented is carried out.
Some of the benefits of ISO 9001 are:
- Improves the image of the organization and builds credibility: when the client sees that the organization has been certified by an international entity, he/she will know that a system oriented to meet client requirements and improvements has been implemented. In this way, there will be greater confidence that the parameters will be met.
- Increases customer satisfaction: among the principles of ISO 9001 is the focus on improving customer satisfaction, identifying and meeting their requirements and needs. By improving satisfaction, the business improves because it increases the likelihood that the customer will purchase the product or service again in the future.
- Processes are standardized and integrated: using the ISO 9001 process approach not only pays attention to the individual processes but also to the interactions that exist between processes. In this way, you can more easily find areas for improvement and resource savings within your organization.
- Evidence-based decision making: Evidence-based decision making is key to success. The results of the parameters used for these measurements help to manage resources and establish the scenario in which each process is, so that if corrections are needed or any discrepancy in the results of the indicators is presented, it is identified more effectively, highlighting as a goal to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
- It establishes a culture of continuous improvement: having continuous improvement as the main result of the Quality Management System, it is possible to achieve greater savings of time, money and other resources that bring financial benefits. By making this the culture of your company, you will be able to focus the work groups on improving the processes for which they are directly responsible, reducing non-conformities.
- Involve people: Who better than the people who work on a process to help find solutions to improve it? By having your work groups not only manage but also improve processes, you will get employees more involved in the organization’s results. Feeling that they are an important part of the process keeps them motivated, and a motivated team conveys that feeling to suppliers and even more so to customers.
- Aligned team: those involved in each of the processes will be clear about the common objectives to be achieved and will be aligned under the same work methodology, which is already defined and made in a document called Process Sheet. In this way, it is easier to verify the step by step activities to be performed, the people involved and those responsible for the process.
Of course the paper accepts whatever you put on it, having the certification on paper, and not having a culture of quality and continuous improvement does not help much. The commitment of the organization is required, the processes must be carried out as stated in the documentation and the evidence must be collected to succeed in subsequent audits, aspects that are achieved with the proper knowledge of the standard.
For this reason it should be considered that the people involved require hours of education and training, in addition to having the appropriate tools and thus be prepared to welcome this transition of processes with a correct implementation.
The pursuit of ISO 9001 certification demands time and money, but it guarantees order and increases the possibility of accessing more business opportunities. If your organization decides to take this path, it is likely to find many challenges and many learning opportunities that will be decisive in the growth process to reach the goal of certification.
If your company’s objectives include increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention, or seeking to increase employee productivity and reduce operating costs, ISO 9001 is ideal for your organization. This standard will show you how the benefits are manifested from the moment the implementation is put into practice, even before achieving certification it is possible to visualize the changes in operations, generating competitive advantages that in the medium term guarantee the sustainability of the organization, and therefore success.
Learn more about Interfaz and the services it provides to help companies transform their ideas into business opportunities.