Category Archives: Business Challenges

Compelling Reasons to engage in ISO 9001

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When we advertise ISO 9001 Consultancy services, businesses often enquire, “Tell us exactly how we can gain from engaging your services?” Good question. The ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS) can be very useful in improving your organisation. To achieve these benefits, an organisation must have the knowledge to implement ISO 9001 in the right manner. An experienced ISO 9001 consultant can save you significant time and money by helping your organisation achieve the following benefits:

1. Attain ISO 9001 Certification The Right Way

A large number of companies get ISO 9001 certification for the wrong reasons, usually because it is statedas a requirement for doing business with an existing or potential customer. This leads to sloppy implementation with no sustainable long-term benefits. An ISO consultant can help you implement the system the right way with the key focus on continual improvement and enhancing customer satisfaction.

2. Improve Company and Product Quality

ISO 9001 requires an organisation to assess and control risks governing its operational processes to assure consistent product or service quality. An experienced ISO 9001 consultant can help you identify and analyse these process risks and find effective ways to control and manage your business activities. Many good consultants have done dozens, if not hundreds of systems audits and they can share best practices gained from that experience.

3. Increase Customer Satisfaction Through Customer-focused Continual Improvement.

Studying your customers needs, both stated and implied leads to not just providing product that meets their specifications, but also fits their actual application or use. This leads to significantly reduced product issues and customer complaints. Partnering with your customers to understand their specific applications and product concerns will help develop long-term relationships with customers. An ISO 9001 consultant can help you set up such continual improvement processes focused on your customers.

4. Establish Metrics For Business Management

You cannot manage and improve an organisation without information on business performance. Many organisations don’t devote enough resources to set up systems to track operational performance. an ISO Consultant can help you determine what business performance metrics to use, how to collect and analyse it and how to use it for timely and effective decision-making to manage and improve your organisation.

5. Empowering Employee Motivation to Develop a Professional Culture

Implementing ISO 9001 can require significant change within an organization. It is human nature for personnel to resist change if they feel it is being forced upon them. Facilitating their participation and empowering employees at all levels from the very outset, to undertake required change of the ISO 9001 implementation project, will help tremendously toimprove their morale, motivation and buy-in to systemic changes. ISO 9001 Consultants have a lot of experience in facilitating such projects.

6. Maintain or Recharge Your ISO 9001 Quality Management System

ISO 9001 provides many tools to ensure it stays dynamic and robust as a business tool. After certification, many organizations let their quality systems slidedue to various reasons such as employee turnover, transfers, added responsibilities, economic downturn, etc. Using ISO 9001 Consulting services to refresh, recharge and retrain employees can provide much needed re-focus and motivation in performing required internal audits, root cause analysis and corrective actions, revisiting controls due to process changes, continual improvements initiatives, etc.

7. Improve Business Efficiency, Reduce Waste, and Save Money

Most businesses have operational problems that they must deal with. Various studies over the decades have indicated that these problems can cause a comapny to lose as much as 35% of its profits Factors such as waste, inefficiency, ineffective use of resources, controls and processes are the major causes of such problems. Many ISO 9001 consultancy services provide a wide range of services beyond ISO. These may include lean manufacturing, six sigma, use of specialised business tools and software and related problem solving skills. The return on investment of such consulting services can be significant.

How to Grow in a Recession

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With the way the economy is right now, it is difficult for many companies to stay afloat. Many businesses manage to get by, but barely. Others are forced to close their doors because of lack of sales. There are steps that businesses can take if they are wondering how to grow in a recession. By following a few easy tips, any business can survive and even grow during these tough economic times. The best ways to grow a business during a recession, such as the one we are experiencing now, business must make selfish business decisions, stay focused on the important topics and be persistent.

For a business to succeed during this struggling time, they must make selfish business decisions. This doesn’t mean people should resort back to the behavior of a 3 year old. It simply means they need to make decisions that will generate the outcomes they need or want. If something won’t be beneficial to the success or growth of your company, it is fine to refuse doing it. Although you may not have acted this way when times were better and the economy wasn’t on everyone’s minds, it is crucial for your business’s success to act this way during a recession. Anyone who wants to know how to grow in a recession must act selfishly from time to time in order to keep their business afloat.

Another tactic people can take if they want to know how to grow in a recession is to stay focused. You have to zero in on what is really important for your business and pay the most attention to that. This relates to the selfishness tactic. You may end up avoiding topics you once spent time on, but it is fine as long as they aren’t the most beneficial part of growing your business. You have to keep your targeted goals in mind at all times.

Being persistent is another tactic people use if they want to know how to grow in a recession. In any business endeavor, especially ones during a recession, there will be obstacles. The key to getting over them and growing from them is to see them as opportunities instead of problems. If you view them as problems, you will lose focus on your goal. By staying persistent, even when problems arise, you will be better focused on solving those problems and attaining your goal. You realize that growing takes time, especially during a recession. You also know that you are able to overcome the recession and grow during it.

By following a few tactics, such as being selfish, being focused and staying persistent, you will be able to know how to grow in a recession. Recessions are difficult on every business, simply because they are new and unchartered waters. People aren’t sure what to do so they end up panicking. A panicked business plan will most often result in a dead business. By realising what actually is important for your business, you will be able to stay focused on achieving those goals.