One of the main drivers for achieving ISO certification to standards such as ISO 9001 Quality Management, ISO 14001 Environmental management and more recently ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management is to win more business. While it was not initially developed to help companies win new business, increasing market share has often been a welcome consequence of ISO 9001 certification. Nowadays, it’s a common procurement requirement for a business to be expected to hold ISO certification.
The reason behind this is that it demonstrates assurance and credibility to stakeholders that your business has an independently verified accredited management system in place which is continually improving.
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the sole body appointed by the UK Government (the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) to provide accreditation to certification bodies here in the UK. This accreditation is considered to be the gold standard in the certification of ISO standards and the only way that an organisation can use the coveted Government-backed national accreditation symbol.
UKAS evaluates certification bodies on an annual basis and, in doing so, provides an assurance of the competence, impartiality and integrity of conformity of those certification bodies. In UKAS’ own words they “check the checkers”.
There are over 20 UKAS-accredited certification bodies in the UK such as BSI, Lloyds Register, SGS, British Assessment and more.
Typically, most procurement requirements include a clause stipulating the need for the business to hold a UKAS-accredited ISO certification. It’s important to ensure that you don’t waste a significant amount of time and money on non-accredited certification – always check first.
By achieving ISO certification, you are better positioned to take advantage of operational and financial benefits such as increased efficiency, cost savings, improved quality and customer satisfaction, and reduced risk. This can lead to increased sales and new business opportunities. But there are further opportunities to gain. It’s important to ensure you are getting as much return on investment as you can in other ways other than business performance improvement. ISO standards can be a great sales and marketing tool. Here are 3 ways to get more out of your ISO certification:
To market ISO certification properly, you should ensure that your website and all marketing materials clearly state that the company is ISO certified and list the relevant certifications. Your certification body should provide you with various logos in the correct formats.
Make sure that customer-facing staff members are familiar with the certification and can explain the benefits of ISO certification to potential customers. This provides further confidence to your stakeholders that ISO standards are thoroughly embedded and not just a tick-box exercise.
Finally, you should use the certification in any press releases, advertising campaigns, and other promotional efforts. This could include the initial awarding of the certification, improvements to the management system and successful recertification.
