The end of financial year is fast approaching, and many companies are now debating how any surplus budget would be best spent. If you’re in this position and; thus, are looking for a suitable way to allocate any remaining funds, certification is an investment you won’t regret.
In recent times, the business environment has been particularly volatile, with unprecedented events bringing about a unique set of challenges for Australian organisations. Now, as the end of June is growing near, it’s the perfect time to start taking proactive and practical steps to help your business bounce back and prosper in an ever-changing market. By becoming ISO certified, you can do just that, all the while getting the most out of your company’s leftover budget.
Still have doubts as to whether ISO certification is for your business?
It’s well worth considering how improved compliance could help your organisation get closer to achieving and, ultimately, surpassing your short and long-term goals. With ISO certification, you can get your business on track for the months ahead, building reliable systems and facilitating your organisation’s continued success well into the future.
By taking the first steps towards implementing integrated, maintainable and optimised management systems now, you can start enjoying the plethora of benefits they offer sooner. In the following article, we’ll be exploring several of these benefits and, essentially, some of the core reasons why ISO certification would be a brilliant investment for your business this end of financial year.
1. Increase in Revenue & Profit
ISO certification is an investment so, even if the upfront cost may be off-putting for some organisations, in many cases; this is later offset by improved profitability.
ISO certification is widely perceived as a reputable, credible and reliable indication of a business’ commitment to excelling in their industry, adequately satisfying all of their requirements and going beyond their regulatory obligations. There’s a diverse selection of quality-driven, internationally recognised ISO standards, so becoming certified can be a great solution for organisations in a range of industries, even those that operate across borders.
After becoming ISO certified, businesses can highlight this achievement, which can attract new prospects and customers who favour a high-quality product or service.
Your customers want to know that they can rely on your business and that, in associating with you, they’re supporting an organisation that complies with relevant government legislation and the like. ISO certification provides them with this assurance and, respectively, can give your business an edge when prospects are assessing their options.
This becomes all the more imperative in incredibly competitive sectors, such as those where companies are competing for a limited number of tenders for large-scale projects. In such circumstances, companies that aren’t certified are at a disadvantage, with many having fewer opportunities to secure tenders and, even if they are considered, they often fall short to compliant applicants.
By actively demonstrating your business’ dedication to continually improving processes and satisfying a leading standard of quality across all operations, your organisation can become a desirable option in a flooded market. This is, of course, invaluable, and may very well inhibit a vital role in maintaining your business’ ongoing feasibility, all the while boosting revenue.
2. Reduced Costs
With ISO certification and improved compliance comes more efficient systems, which, over time, can save you business a notable amount of money and resources.
This is because, in striving towards becoming and maintaining compliance with ISO standards, organisations must continually be looking for ways to improve their existing processes, helping them be proactive in optimising systems.
In doing this, your business can identify and alleviate unnecessary time and financial costs and, as your processes become more streamlined and consistent, you will likely start to see tangible results. For instance, for many businesses, by becoming certified, they can strategically and systematically minimise waste across all of their processes in a maintainable way and, importantly, without ‘cutting corners’ or compromising on the quality of their product or service.
Beyond this, through achieving compliance with ISO standards, such as ISO 45001 and ISO 14001, organisations can ensure they’re up-to-date on and operating in accordance with current legislation. While it can be challenging for businesses to stay informed on the latest in regulatory updates and the like, with ISO certification comes the assurance that they aren’t overlooking key legal obligations.
This can, in turn, help organisations ensure they’re taking sufficient action to avoid costly blunders and fines, which will otherwise act as a financial burden for their business. As many companies are already experiencing some degree of financial strain after a string of challenging months, doing what you can to avoid expensive mistakes has become all the more important. With this in mind, the costs associated with becoming ISO certified are, in many cases, far less than those a business will incur if they fail to adequately meet their legislative requirements and, thus; must resolve deeply rooted issues, pay legal fees or the like.
3. Improved Documentation
While some businesses have limited documentation defining organisational processes and the like, others occupy the other end of the spectrum, having documented their systems extensively. Either extreme can be harmful to the efficiency of businesses and, more specifically, the effectiveness of their management systems.
If an organisation lacks the appropriate documentation, they may struggle to instil a shared corporate culture, whereby everyone; regardless of their position in the company, is working towards shared goals. In addition to this, they may experience difficulty when aiming to streamline processes and achieve consistency across all of their operations, especially if they’re a particularly large business with complex systems.
Alternatively, heavily documented processes may cause confusion, overcomplicating systems and overwhelming those who try and make sense of them. This can, of course, slow organisations down, making them less responsive and adaptable in a volatile market.
However, through becoming ISO certified, businesses can systematically introduce well-thought-out and practical documentation systems, all of which are deemed relevant and necessary for them. Beyond this, by integrating cloud-based management systems into their existing frameworks, organisations can automate repetitive and non-core tasks, while also alleviating the need for hard copy documents which can be tiresome to update.
In doing this, businesses also have the opportunity to eliminate duplication across documents, making their management systems not only lean, but also low burden. This is because ISO standards are designed in a way that supports easy integration, meaning organisations can avoid recording the same information over and over again, which would be impractical and inefficient.
Ready to Get ISO Certified this End of Financial Year?
If you’re ready to start taking the first steps towards achieving improved compliance and, thus; start enjoying the benefits of ISO certification, get in touch with our team.
With experienced consultants across Australia, Integrated Compliance Solutions can assist you in introducing and maintaining reliable, streamlined and efficient management systems you can rely on. We work with a range of ISO standards, including ISO 45001, ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ISO 27001. Our consultants can also assist you in conducting ISO internal audits and compliance audits, as well as boosting productivity with cloud-based integrated management systems.
For more information, contact us today.