ISO 9001 is a quality management standard and is the most popular of the standards, with over 1 million organisations worldwide currently certified to the standard. But what makes it so popular and how can ISO 9001 help your business?

What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is an international quality management standard that defines what is required to develop a quality management system. Its fundamental purpose is to develop a framework that allows organisations to prioritise consistency, quality and improvement, improving your organisation’s overall performance and establishing a solid foundation for long-term strategies. ISO 9001 certification has several advantages for both the organisation and its consumers. It focuses on customer satisfaction as well as driving business growth, benefiting lone traders just as much as major corporations.

Learn more about ISO 9001 in our What is ISO 9001? blog. 

What are ISO 9001 key principles?

Within ISO 9001, there are a set of quality management principles (QMP), which are fundamental to the success of the ISO Standard. 

• Customer Focus
• Leadership
• Engagement of people
• Process approach
• Improvement
• Evidence-based decision making
• Relationship Management

How can ISO 9001 help my business?

As mentioned above, ISO 9001 has many benefits for your business, with the use of the QMPs, ISO 9001 can help increase earnings. Planning is one of the sections of the quality management system and planning is vital for optimising your stock control and efficiency. By optimising your stock control, you will be able to identify what sells and how often you need to replenish stock at the right time within your cash flow, minimising out-of-stock situations and avoiding unnecessary stock build-up. Furthermore, planning, increasing productivity and a higher rate of customer satisfaction will see an increase in profits with customer retention and a drop in wasted costs. 

Because ISO is reconsigned worldwide, achieving an ISO 9001 certification enables your organisation to be a part of the highly valued and vastly recognised Standard. Clients, customers and stakeholders will be assured, knowing that your organisation is certified to an internationally recognised Quality Management Certification.

How does ISO 9001 improve quality?

ISO 9001 increases quality through a variety of quality management concepts, including a strong customer focus, top management motivation and involvement, a process approach, and continuous improvement. ISO 9001 helps to ensure that clients receive consistently high-quality products and services. 

ISO 9001 is founded on several quality management principles, including a strong customer focus, senior management commitment and cooperation, the process method, and continuous improvement. Using ISO 9001 helps to ensure that clients receive consistent, high-quality products and services, which has several commercial benefits.

The standard aims to improve customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for system improvement and assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.