As a business owner, you must be familiar with the struggle of building a customer base and retaining your clients. Won’t it be wonderful if there was a leaflet of instructions that you could follow to identify the actual needs of your customers and create services or products that are a perfect fit for those needs? The ISO 9001 standard is that set of instructions that can help you create high-quality products or services that your customers would love. Let us explore how ISO 9001 can improve your business.
What is ISO 9001?
ISO 9001 is a set of instructions that helps business owners build an effective Quality Management System (QMS). These instructions are provided in the form of 10 clauses, where the first three are introductory in nature. The fourth clause helps the organisation identify its scope and boundaries, the fifth clause helps delineate leadership commitment and the sixth clause helps to plan for the QMS. The seventh clause focuses on support and resource management, eighth on operational planning and control, ninth on performance evaluation and tenth on improvement actions.
With the help of these instructions and ISO 9001 consultant who plays an important role in their implementation, organisations are able to create procedures that allow them to identify the needs of their clients and create controls that prevents their-quality from deteriorating.
What is a QMS?
A QMS is a document that introduces the seven quality management principles which helps organisations foster a “quality-first” environment. These principles include customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making and relationship management. The QMS is flexible and the relative importance of each principle varies from organisation to organisation, and can change over time. With the help of an ISO consultant, companies can implement QMS.
Benefits of ISO 9001 for your business
Through the implementation of the QMS, organisations are able to intermingle quality management principles into their daily practises. Additionally, the heart of the ISO 9001 standard is the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle which urges management to dig in, get their hands dirty and really evaluate the efficiency of their processes. It is because of the constant evaluation, improvement and re-evaluation, that your business will enjoy the benefits associated with ISO 9001. Let us discuss how ISO 9001 can improve your business:
1.Building a loyal customer base
Sustained success can only be achieved when a business attracts and retains the confidence of its customers. The ISO 9001 standard helps business owners explore every aspect of customer interaction, thereby providing an opportunity to create more value for your clients. Additionally, the customer focus of the QMS helps business owners understand the current and future needs of their clients and other parties, contributing to the sustained success of your organisation.
The benefits that you will enjoy include increased customer value, increased customer satisfaction, improved customer loyalty, enhanced repeated businesses, enhanced reputation of the organisation, expanded customer base and consequently, increased revenue and market share.
2.Better management
The standard helps leaders at all levels establish unity for the purpose of engaging people in the organisation’s quality objectives. The creation of unity of purpose gives direction to the engagement of people, enabling the organisation to aligned with its quality policies, processes, strategies and resources.
Better leadership commitment leads to increased effectiveness and efficiency, better coordination of the organisation’s processes, improved communication between different levels and functions of the organisation, development and improvement of the organisation’s capability to deliver desired results and sustained success.
3.Happier staff
The ISO 9001 standard empowers and engages people at all levels, thereby enhancing their capability to deliver value. To manage your organisation efficiently and effectively, it is vital to involve people at all levels and respect them as individuals.The ISO 9001 standard helps you recognise and enhance the competence of your employees by engaging with them regularly.
As a result, your organisation’s ability to meet quality objectives increases. It also leads to improved understanding of the organisation’s quality objectives, enhanced involvement of people in improvement activities, enhanced personal development, enhanced employee satisfaction, enhanced trust and collaboration throughput the organisation, increased attention to shared values and better productivity.
4.More profits
The recognition of ISO 9001 standard helps you easily enter foreign markets and dominate domestic ones. Additionally, you will come across more opportunities as ISO 9001 is a prerequisite for qualifying to various tenders.
5.Predictable results
Consistency can be achieved in a more efficient and effective manner, when activities are understood and managed as interrelated processes of a coherent system. The ISO 9001 standard focuses on a process approach that helps businesses understand how results are produced by the system, enabling them to optimise the system and its performance.
As a result, your ability to focus on key processes and opportunities increases, your outcomes become consistent and predictable, performance is optimised and organisational confidence is increased.
ISO 9001 consultant
As business owners face difficulty in understanding and implementing the technical requirements of ISO 9001 into their organisation, they often hire a consultant. An ISO 9001 consultant is well versed in the technicality and the real-world application of the QMS, helping you customise the requirements to suit your needs.
The benefit of hiring an ISO 9001 consultant is that you save money, time and effort in your certification process. Additionally, your QMS is effective, sustainable and profitable.
The fastest way to issue ISO certification is to use professional ISO consulting services such as The ISO Council. You can get more information about how to implement and issue ISO 9001 certification on the isocouncil.com.au website.
