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Are you thinking about becoming ISO certified? This article is provided to help you learn more about how being ISO certified can help your business.

ISO- The Internal Organisation for Standardisation was formed in 1947 with the goal to 'facilitate the international coordination and unification of industry standards'. The organisation promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards.

So...what can ISO do for your business?

Each standard has its own benefits within the industry, however being ISO certified brings many general benefits for businesses such as:

• Making business processes more effective
• Increasing productivity and efficiency which has a positive effect on the bottom line
• Reducing barriers to international trade
• Increasing levels of customer service and higher levels of customer satisfaction
• Reducing negative impact on the environment
• Heightening staff morale and motivation by giving them ongoing goals to reach

ISO-9001.

The most common standard is ISO 9001- The benchmark for quality management and a critical tool for boosting your company's success, profitability and market potential.

ISO 9001 sets out the steps necessary to adopt a quality management system. It is designed to help organisations ensure they meet the needs and expectations of both customers and other interested parties, based on internationally recognised quality management principles set out by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

At the heart of the standard is a quality policy and set of systems and principles that tie together business objectives, customer needs and your marketing plan. When this approach to quality is embedded across the business every employee understands how their actions create a better customer experience and processes are put in place to continually review and improve that customer experience.

ISO 9001 is what is known as a 'generic standard' – this means it can be applied to any organisation no matter its size or complexity.

What can being ISO 9001 certified do for your business?

By focusing on your customers' experience, ISO 9001 will better equip your business to meet their needs, improving the customer focus throughout the business. The impact of this can fundamentally change your business:

• Internal processes are streamlined, improving efficiency, costs and savings, whilst improving accountability and traceability
• A recognised mark of quality opens your business up to larger clients and wider tendering opportunities
• Staff motivation is improved through greater clarity and focus on business objectives – time and resource is spent on what really matters to the business
• Customer service levels improve as customer focus is built into all systems and processes
• Better internal processes and customer services, ultimately improves competitiveness leading to a higher profit potential

Perhaps the most important element of the standard however, is that it is not a one-off exercise. Regular reviews keep quality at the forefront of the business, with continuous improvement processes driving the way the business develops to better meet customer needs.

This is perhaps why ISO 9001 is one of the most widely used management tools in the world, with over 1 million organisations certified.