The Importance of Industry-Recognized Accreditation
Adhering to the highest quality standards is vital to staying ahead of the competition. While business owners may know they are producing top-notch products and services, proving this to partners, suppliers, and customers involves going the extra mile. Industry-recognized accreditation in the form of ISO certification is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate your dedication to quality and the highest standards. ISO-accredited organizations find that it can help streamline work processes, support innovation, and provide a competitive edge.
Let's look at ISO accreditation and its importance to your business.
What Is ISO Certification?
ISO certification confirms that a business meets a set of quality and efficiency requirements defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ISO is an independent, non-governmental, and voluntary organization that identifies characteristics and specifications for product, service, and system quality.
Also, ISO aims to improve the quality and efficiency of products and services worldwide. Its goals include streamlining international trade and increasing levels of safety across multiple industries.
While ISO doesn't arrange certification, it delegates the process to accredited bodies. Member bodies of ISO currently exist in over 160 countries.
ISO provides standards for various industries, from manufacturing and food to IT and healthcare. Each certification comes with different criteria and numeric indications. For example, the most popular ISO certificates are:
ISO 9001 (Quality Management)
ISO 14001 (Environmental Management)
ISO/IEC 27001 (Information Security)
ISO 22000 (Food Safety)
ISO 13845 (Medical Device Quality Management)
For example, if your business has ISO 9001 certification, it meets all the criteria listed under ISO 9001. Each ISO certification comes with an expiration date. Generally, you have to renew it once every three years.
A business can implement more than one ISO standard and receive the appropriate accreditation. Acquiring multiple ISO accreditations may be complicated. If they are related, each new certification is easier to achieve. The benefits of ISO certification multiply.
Main Benefits of ISO Accreditation
Industry-recognized accreditation has multiple benefits that improve your company's reputation and help you acquire new market share. For many businesses, ISO certification doesn't just come with a high ROI. It also opens up new possibilities for growth and development.
Higher LTV
ISO certification directly affects customer or client lifetime value (LTV). By meeting ISO standards, you are ensuring the quality of your products and services. A strict approach to quality, convenience, and efficiency keeps your audience with your company for years.
Besides helping you ensure excellent quality, ISO certification provides opportunities for innovation and learning. This, in turn, keeps customers' interest piqued.
The most popular ISO certification (ISO 9001) that focuses on quality management demands your business to continuously improve its framework and tune all operations to quality standards. This directly affects customer satisfaction and retention rates.
Improved Business Operations
Following ISO standards makes it easier to streamline business operations by improving their efficiency. Multiple guidelines and best practices can help you make critical adjustments you may have yet to implement.
ISO standards provide valuable knowledge required to optimize business operations and help employees improve their performance. Some businesses even rely on ISO standards to enhance their day-to-day work without the ISO certification process.
Since most ISO standards stress performance evaluation and improvement, they encourage you to monitor, measure, evaluate, and analyze operations continuously. Then you have to make adjustments to ensure adherence to the guidelines. Generally, these adjustments lead to a significant positive impact.
Competitive Advantage
ISO accreditation allows you to gain a competitive advantage by:
Improving the quality of products and services
Gaining the opportunity to promote your business internationally
Putting you on preferred supplier lists
Allowing you to work with worldwide organizations
Helping you sign contacts with large-scale businesses
Industry-wide accreditation can open many doors for collaboration with different types of companies from all over the world. It has a high potential to increase your revenue and allow you to acquire market share.
For many companies, ISO certification becomes an opportunity to secure larger contracts and take the business to a higher level of operations while exploring new industry sectors.
More Opportunities for Tenders
ISO accreditation can make you eligible for some government tenders that aren't accessible to your competition. Fewer competitors mean higher chances of winning the tender.
Among government departments, ISO certification often speaks for itself. It demonstrates your dedication to quality and ability to follow strict guidelines. For the government, this accreditation is a sign that the collaboration with your business is highly likely to be successful.
Increased Revenue
All of the abovementioned benefits of ISO certification contribute to improving the company's bottom line. An in-depth analysis of 92 studies recently demonstrated that ISO 9001 certification helped businesses increase their revenue.
Since ISO certification allows you to leverage new market opportunities, it contributes to your company's financial well-being. Businesses that fully utilize their ISO certification can quickly become industry leaders.
Facilitated Collaboration
The international acceptance of ISO certification makes it easier to secure international contracts. You can also explore collaboration opportunities with companies of all sizes and specializations.
This directly affects your business's ability to expand, develop, and grow while improving its reputation on the global level.
How to Become ISO Certified
The average ISO certification costs a small business around $10,000. While the amount may seem high, many companies are willing to make this investment to receive a substantial return.
The main steps to getting the desired accreditation after choosing a relevant ISO standard include the following:
Choose an ISO Certification Body
An ISO certification body is an accredited certification organization that handles the certification process. Elements to consider when choosing an ISO certification body include:
Reputation: Find out how happy other businesses are with the organization's work.
Accreditation: Check the list of accredited ISO certification bodies.
Specialization: Make sure the organization has experience with companies in your industry.
Experience: Find out how many companies the organization has previously worked with.
Flexibility: Ask about the organization's availability to service your location.
Start the search for a certification body as soon as you decide to get ISO certification. This provides sufficient time to compare quotes while you are busy implementing the management system.
Establish and Implement a Management System
Depending on the requirements of your chosen ISO standards, you may have to adopt a relevant management system for compliance. Implementing the system to suit the standards involves:
Understanding the guidelines and standards
Identifying relevant responsibilities and roles within the organization
Developing documentation
Launching the management system
Reviewing your performance
Then you can assess your compliance with the standards and schedule the certification process with the accredited organization of your choice. In the majority of cases, the process involves a two-step audit. First, the organization checks your documentation and allows you to make corrections. After you take care of non-conformities, they perform a second audit and issue a certificate.
The Relevance of ISO Certification to Your Business
While ISO certification can be essential to successful business operations, it's not mandatory. Companies can receive grants, improve operations, and become industry leaders without following ISO standards. However, industry-recognized certification makes it easier to achieve your goals, especially if you are working with international markets.