subject: Who Needs ISO 9001? I Don't Want to Change the Way I Do Business [print this page] Who Needs ISO 9001? I Don't Want to Change the Way I Do Business
It's important to remember the following key points:
If you truly do not want to change the way you do business, we can only wish you the best of success. However, you do risk atrophy. You may not be realizing the full potential of the business.
ISO 9001 is meant to fit into your business, not the other way around
ISO 9001 does not know anything about your business. It is a generic management standard in that it can be applied to companies of any size irrespective of whether they deliver products or services. But ISO 9001 does know about best practices for running an effective and efficient Quality Management System (some call it a Business Management System).
Think of ISO 9001 as a playbook for helping you run a better business. Ignore the playbook at your own peril. Imagine you are learning to play chess for the first time. Wouldn't you be a more effective chess player if you studied an authoritative chess manual? We're not saying you should stop playing chess but in order to become more successful, you do need to adapt and that means changing the way you play the game.
ISO 9001 is about Quality, Customer Focus, Leadership, Involvement of People, System Approach to Management, Continual Improvement, Process Approach, Fact-Based Decision Making and Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships. What business wouldn't want to stand behind those principles? Your customers (and potential customers) would strongly argue that your business should stand behind these principles. Therefore, maybe you do indeed need to change the way you do business insofar as learning how to accommodate the guiding principles espoused by ISO 9001.
ISO 9001 is the world's most popular international standard. More than 1,000,000 companies in over 174 countries are certified to ISO 9001. Is this a fluke? Why would Rolls-Royce, Purolator Courier and countless other companies pursue and maintain certification to ISO 9001 unless they understood the positive return on investment engineered by ISO 9001?
Nowhere in the standard does it state your business needs to incur any mandatory expenditures
The idea for ISO 9001 was hatched by people like you and I. These people felt there needed to be a better way for businesses to provide consistent quality in their products and services in order to better serve the customer. Their concerns were taken to a higher power. In this case, the International Organizations for Standardization (ISO). Because of an ongoing worldwide demand and a clearly established need from industry sectors and stakeholders for a Quality Management System (QMS), ISO launched the development of ISO 9001. In summary, these people were not looking to change their business per se but they were open-minded in considering anything that would take them from good to great.
About Richard Desmarais and statusGO business solutions: Richard is a certified ISO 9001:2000 Lead Auditor and has intensively studied the poetry of the ISO 9000 family. With Richard's leadership as Enunciate Conferencing's ISO Management Representative, Enunciate achieved certification on its first attempt and became the first and only ISO-certified conferencing company in the world. He is a Registered Professional Trainer (RPT), a nationally-recognized designation in Canada. To date, there are only 176 RPTs in Canada. He is a member of the Canadian Professional Trainers Association, the Association of Independent Consultants and the International Customer Service Association. Richard is also a certified as a Microsoft Master Office Specialist. statusGO business solutions specializes in helping companies implement and optimize their Quality Management System by utilizing the principles and best practices outlined in the ISO 9000 family of standards. And we ensure you maximize your Conferencing & Collaboration experience with our customized training solutions.
