What can quality do for your business?
Most people do it because they need to demonstrate compliance to a standard or regulatory body. The real benefit is managing your business processes better, rather than being in a big ol' bowl of spaghetti, they're mapped out, clear, efficient, fool-proof and often automated. Easier job, done quicker, with less money and man hours spent on it. No one is faffing around duplicating, fixing, complaining or banging their heads against the wall of bureaucracy, so they can get on with their actual job.
It is better to start thinking this way when you're small and instil this as you grow, rather than try to teach old dogs new tricks when all the problems have embedded their fingernails into the window frames and you can't evict them. There's no such thing as being 'too small' for quality - we're selling you the prevention here, not the cure. Call it a vaccine for human error.
Being a responsible, efficient and stream-lined business also comes with the benefits of opening new doors to clients who may not have looked twice at your bid due to a lack of accreditation. Bigger fish require bait and, sometimes, the worm on the line may well be your ISO certs.
With an ISO-based management system in place, you've moved beyond a thronging mass of individuals and into a thriving, going concern. Everyone has great people in their business, but if you're reliant on Greg from Sales and suddenly Greg jets off to Magaluf for 2 weeks .... you're stuck holding the fort and no one knows what to do. Having a bonafide QMS means no single point of failure and everyone has the chance for an all-inclusive without risking tanking the entire business whilst they're away.
- QMS describes how people work.
- People work according to the QMS!
- Audits are your eyes and ears.
- Leaders are informed and confident.
- Everyone is engaged!
Whatever your business, sector or industry you're going to have to demonstrate your compliance to some sort of standard (technical, sustainability, health and safety, data security, etc). A QMS will give you the framework and tools needed to demonstrate that compliance and, more importantly, protect your business. Quality is the seed planted to stimulate growth, providing strong structures and processes to avoid expanding into chaos.
As a leader you need to have confidence in the way your business is run. Everyone has a horror-story of that manager who micro-managed themselves and their teams into oblivion, determined to know everything that everyone did, all of the time. No one likes them. Instead, an effective QMS will allow you eyes and ears into how the business runs without squashing the souls of your employees. Audits are not sticks to beat you about the head with, an independent audit can be a powerful leadership tool providing assurance that all is well (or an early warning alarm that something is about to go belly-up).
This is not just sales gobbledegook. We know it to be truth because we do it ourselves and have our own ISO 9001 certification to prove it.
In the UK there is only one government approved accreditation body (UKAS). When your customers are asking to see your ISO certification, they expect to see the UKAS logo. Without this, your customer may reject the certificate and you may find you've a costly exercise to undo the commercial damage, upgrade your system and put yourself through the certification process all over again.
