Have you ever been in a situation in your organization where you could not find an important document or when one of your customers told you that your product was not up to the mark? In our businesses, every day we are encountered with situations that question the effectiveness of our processes and thereby the quality of our products and services. This is where the importance of implementing quality standards such as ISO comes into existence.
ISO is one of the most widely used quality standards across the world and has been developed by International Organization for Standardization for management of quality in service and manufacturing organizations. The ISO standard is based on principles of customer focus, good leadership, people involvement, process approach to quality management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making and supplier relationships and presents guidelines intended to increase business efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Need For ISO Implementation
The impact of ISO standards is so extensive that it is almost impossible to bid for international contracts without being ISO certified. ISO quality standards are widely known to improve the quality of products and services and lead to an improvement in bottom line in relation to competitiveness, productivity and market share. In other words, an improvement in overall business results.
Some of the benefits of ISO compliance are as follows
- Makes design, development and supply of products more efficient and safe
- Helps companies comply with international standards thereby making sure that the products and services have wide international acceptance in their sectors. Therefore, businesses using International Standards can compete in many more markets around the world.
- Disseminates information within the organization
- Safeguards and assures consumers of quality and safety of products thereby making products more acceptable and buyable in the market. Makes customers more aware of the products they are buying thereby leading to more competitiveness among products for a better quality.
- Helps organizations manage problems effectively by identifying the root cause of the problem, leading to reduced impact, containment of error and prevention of recurrence.
- Makes sure that the products comply with health, safety and environmental legislation.
- Creates a level playing field for all competitors in any given market thereby opening the product up to a much wider audience.
In the research paper titled Factors Affecting the Implementation Effectiveness of ISO 9001(2015) Standard and its Impact on Business Results , authors P. Wickramasuriya and A. S. Dharmasiri quote Casadesus and Gimenez about the benefits of ISO compliance, “According to a study in 160 Australian companies the benefits obtained with certification are as follows: increase of company quality awareness, increase of product quality awareness, improvement of company management, improvement of customer relations, improvement of products and services offered, improvement of relations within the organization, increase in customer satisfaction and increased respect from competitors. The fact that ISO certification benefits the company is confirmed in many other researches carried out on numerous firms throughout the world. Adanur and Allen, who conducted a survey among 150 textile companies, identified five benefits of ISO: reduced customer complaints and improved supplier quality, better involvement of people, restriction of inferior quality products from being shipped, increased business and reduced costs. Another survey Sri Lankan Journal of Management Volume 15, Nos. 2 , 3 & 4 – 3 – carried out among 43 ISO certified Turkish textile companies by Calisir et al. reported increased product quality, reduced error/defect rate in production, and increased overseas market share as the benefits of certification.”
Based on the results of the above mentioned research carried out in different countries, one can conclude that certification for ISO standard will improve performance of an organization in many different contexts. Today research has shown that quality is one of the main ingredients that drives business excellence for any organization and that is where the importance of ISO comes into being.
Importance of Effective Implementation of ISO Standards
The same paper however also suggests that the success of ISO implementation in an organization depends on a number of factors, the approach for implementing ISO standards being one key factor. A study by International Journal of Business Administration also states that lack of human resources, insufficient employee training and insufficient knowledge about quality programs are some of the key factors that affect a successful implementation of ISO processes.
Especially for small and medium size organizations, implementing ISO can be a daunting process and can strain their already limited manpower. A process implemented ineffectively could make the system complex, non-user friendly, document intensive and difficult to implement. More importantly, an ineffectively implemented process will not lead to the kind of productivity and profitability that one would hope from an ISO implementation. This is where a good ISO implementation consultant or a good ISO compliance product comes in.
MyEasyISO is a product by Effivity Technologies LLC which provides a unique approach to manage and optimize ISO compliance in a user-friendly manner. Effivity Technologies LLC is promoted by Kaushal Sutaria and D. Shanker and is a company with global footprints. MyEasyISO has been developed by QHSE professionals having more than 850 man years cumulative quality, environment and health safety experience across the globe. MyEasyISO makes sure that there are no two parallel systems running, there no is wastage of time and resources, documentation is robust and comprehensive and saves time and efforts of the company trying to comply with ISO standards. The product is available in multiple price slabs making sure that all categories of organizations can use the product.
Many companies have products and services but only those companies that put out products and services effectively that succeed. A carefully implemented ISO compliance process is surely a necessary step towards achieving product and service effectiveness.
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