When contracting to large businesses or the public sector (government) ISO 9001 acts as a prequalification tool. It lets others know your business has its affairs in order. This is particularly the case for Aussie businesses exporting to the world.
A recent client satisfaction survey conducted by QMS Australia highlighted the benefits of achieving certification to ISO 9001. Here is a summary of the results:
• The respondents from the survey are most likely to be small or medium enterprises (SME). However, the industries covered are wide and varied; the construction, oil and gas, retail, and technology sectors are just a handful of many found within the survey’s sample.
• We found that 38 percent of respondents said that they had won business (everyone loves getting more clients/customers right?) as a result of certification.
• The survey also showed that 76 percent of QMS Australia clients found that ISO 9001 certification had helped them to be more competitive. Breaking down that figure, 22 percent of respondents said that ISO 9001 certification allowed them to bid for more contracts, 31 percent said they had won contracts, 20 percent said they had raised their profile, and 3 percent said they now have an advantage over their competitors.
• Of course, fundamentally ISO 9001 is aimed at providing a framework for organisations to help bring greater consistency and traceability to what they do. This wasn’t lost, with 55 percent of respondents saying that implementation had led to internal improvement.
Anecdotally, our survey has shown that clients tend to fit in one of two camps: those looking for business improvement and those looking to win new business. From an industry perspective, the fear is that if the latter reason continues to dominate, ISO 9001 will be viewed as a tickbox exercise rather than a business improvement tool.
In Australia, ISO 9001 acts as a prequalification tool. The idea is that it saves companies both time and money in avoiding having to audit every supplier. Certification provides a level of assurance that rigorous checks have already been done by an unbiased external body governed by JAS-ANZ. The trouble is, meeting the requirements of the standard and truly living it are two very different things.
