4 Biggest Difficulties Organisations Face While Achieving an ISO Certification

by Isabel Blamey Professional writer

Summary:

This article will explain the biggest challenges that most businesses face in their journey to get accredited or certified with an ISO standard.

Businesses are seeking effective strategies to sustain and stand out in this fiercely competitive marketplace. Achieving an ISO certification like ISO 9001 with proper implementation of a standardised management system is one of the proven strategies for businesses to make a position amidst the cut-throat situation in the market. ISO standards act as the benchmark for businesses. They demonstrate the quality and genuineness of the products/services and exhibit their commitment to best management practices. Thus, whatever standard a business achieves, it has a great influence on the purchasing decision of the buyers as well as its relationships with the stakeholders.

Although ISO certifications have a lot to offer to a business and help them in sustainable growth, implementing the management system correctly for achieving compliance with the standard is challenging. Here this article explains some of the crucial challenges that your company may face while getting a certification.

4 Key Difficulties That Your Business May Face While Achieving an ISO Certification

Lack of Knowledge

Lack of understanding and knowledge of the ISO standard is the first and most critical challenge for businesses when they start implementing the management system. The standard underpins the requirements for the system. Hence, even when you start planning for the implementation, you as well as your staff need to acquire a complete knowledge of the standard’s requirements. Lack of adequate understanding would result in the development of an ineffective management system that stands less chance to become ISO compliant.

Overcoming this challenge is easy! You can seek consultation from dedicated ISO consultants or experts who are quite familiar with ISO standards and assist companies in achieving compliance.

Reluctance of Employees

Implementation of a management system at the heart of your organisation calls for significant change in the processes. Change is not always welcomed positively by the employees because their tasks or work procedures will also undergo changes. Thus, the implementation can be resisted by the employees who fear it might overburden their job roles and duties.

Therefore, hold training and awareness sessions to make sure the employees realise the importance of the ISO standard and do not resist the implementation of a formal management system. When employees understand it, they feel motivated about implementing and working with the system and thereby ensure the success of the ISO certification.

Excessive Documentation

Creating documents related to the work procedures and maintaining them is essential for achieving compliance with an ISO standard. Documentation is in fact one of the key criteria for the certification. It helps the business to provide evidence of its compliance to the certification body. However, documenting every process, responsibilities of employees and every aspect of the management system is a tedious and time-consuming task.

Thus, act wisely and document only the crucial aspects that are necessary to prove your compliance with the ISO standard to overcome this challenge in your business.

Internal Auditing

Internal audit is a vital practice that businesses need to perform one or more times before applying for the certification. It is about thoroughly evaluating the processes of your business and the management system including the documentation, employee roles, etc. to ensure that everything is compliant with the conditions of the standard. Therefore, internal audit practice is a kind of opportunity to improve your business’s performance. It enables you to discover the nonconformities, shortfalls, or any issues in your processes or the management system and quickly resolve them. Therefore, the internal audit’s findings draw the attention of your management team to critical areas that require improvement. However, many businesses lack the understanding of the audit procedure and do not have skilled professionals to evaluate the processes and management system.

An easy way to get rid of this challenge is to hire an ISO consulting agency that offers internal audit services. They will carefully audit your organisation, find the aspects that need improvements, and will even suggest effective corrective actions to address them.

A root cause behind the slow growth of ISO certifications across the world are these challenges. In many regions, they go around as myths which make small and mid-sized businesses assume that they can never achieve an ISO certification. Therefore, we have explained them to you as real challenges which can be overcome intelligently by applying the right tactic or using the right resources.

Author Bio:

Damon Anderson is the owner and head consultant of an eminent ISO certification consultancy in Australia which provides consultation and assurance services to businesses that need to get certified with a desired standard or standards. Being the head ISO consultant, he has gained a wealth of experience in ISO standards implementation and likes to share his knowledge through his write-ups.

Contact Details:

Business Name: Compliancehelp

Email Id: sales@compliancehelp.com.au

Phone No: 1800 503 401