subject: ISO's Role in Helping Businesses Worldwide [print this page] ISO's Role in Helping Businesses Worldwide
Trading between different countries presents a lot of challenges for many business firms and companies. This is because different countries use different standards or units of measurement. This results in traders getting products and services that do not fit their own standard, discouraging trade and commerce. Many business opportunities are lost, and companies lose their potential to expand and prosper.
In order to find a solution to this problem, various nations have sent representatives for their own Standards Organization to meet with representatives from other countries in order to work out a universal Standard. By setting universally accepted standards, trade and commerce between nations become more unified and efficient, reducing the amount of products that get rejected due to compatibility issues.
One of the most important products of the combined efforts of different representatives is the International Standards. These Standards are documents that have detailed information about product specifications and business policies designed to improve ease of transaction between businesses that originally rely on different standards. This reduces product incompatibilities or issues with varying characteristics of customer services in different countries.
Collaboration between standards organizations of different countries also led to the development of other documents such as Technical Specifications, Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications and various guides. These documents go hand in hand with available International Standards. A company that has undergone ISO registration will have less issues concerning product compatibility and will have a wider customer base compared with non-conforming business firms even in other countries.
Among the most common business practices is acquiring ISO certification. 9001 is an International Standard that is designed to improve a company's quality management system. Implementing the International Standard streamlines business procedures and minimizes reworking costs due to production defects and discrepancies. Other International Standards are also available to optimize specific business aspects for different industries. ISO registrars will perform a series of audits on a company before being certified.
Nowadays, ISO certification is required from companies by most customers and organizations. This is because an ISO-certified business is sure to meet specific conditions and requirements that encourage easier business transactions. Some markets are even completely exclusive for ISO certified companies. ISO certification also improves a company's overall image, giving them a much needed advantage over their competition.
