Key Takeaways
- ISO compliance gives organizations a competitive advantage and helps them expand internationally.
- Ineffective collaboration, irregular internal audits, and lack of continuous employee training make compliance challenging.
- ISO compliance software address these challenges with features like customizable checklists, centralized data storage, insightful dashboards, automated reports and workflows, and efficient scheduling.
ISO standards are developed by experts from 171 countries and recognized globally. Thus, compliance with ISO standards helps ensure your business decisions align with best practices established by international leading industry experts. Even if you don’t plan to get officially certified, this allows you to deliver top-quality goods/services and increase customer satisfaction.
Then, the question arises: How does a business implement and maintain ISO compliance?
Read on to learn why ISO standard compliance matters for businesses and the top strategies and tips for maintaining them.
ISO Compliance Meaning: What is It and Why Should Businesses Comply With ISO?
ISO compliance is the practice of adhering to standards put forward by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), even without certification or recertification. For example, a company can be ISO compliant if its QMS is developed as per the ISO 9001 guidelines.
ISO has established standards for various frameworks – quality, environment, data protection, etc. Companies choose one or more based on their requirements and what core values they want to communicate. For example, a tech firm may choose ISO 27001 to convey its commitment to protecting user data and privacy.
Although there’s no penalty for not adhering to ISO standards, companies choose to comply with them to gain a competitive edge and capture a higher market share.
By producing goods or services as per the ISO standards, companies ensure they meet globally recognized quality standards, helping them expand their business internationally and build a reputation in the long run. For example, many global companies require their suppliers to comply with particular ISO standards.
Key Benefits of ISO Standard Compliance
Besides providing a competitive edge, complying with ISO standards offers the following benefits:
- Streamlines and Optimizes Operations: Organizations can use the existing ISO standard compliance guidelines to set up best-in-class systems and operations instead of reinventing the wheel. Furthermore, they can review their existing operational processes through the lens of ISO compliance to gain insights and identify areas for improvement.
- Reduces Losses: ISO compliance prevents companies from delivering subpar products/services to customers, reducing losses due to recalls and litigations. For example, ISO 27001 prevents data breaches, and ISO 31000 and related standards lay out best practices for risk mitigation.
- Increases Efficiency: ISO standard compliance and certification involve regular audits that help companies identify and eliminate inefficiencies and redundancies. This also results in significant cost savings.
- Improves Quality and Customer Satisfaction: Complying with ISO standards, particularly, ISO 9001, helps organizations implement effective quality control processes, leading to consistent and improved product or service quality. This continuous improvement in quality leads to greater customer satisfaction over time.
What are the Types of ISO Standard Compliance?
To cover a wide range of fields, ISO has published more than 25,400 standards related to products and processes. The popular ISO management compliance categories include the following:
- Energy and natural resource management standards
- Environmental management standards
- Quality management standards
- Social responsibility standards
- Health and safety standards
- Food safety standards
- IT security standards
Common ISO Standards Businesses Comply With
Some of the popular ISO standards are listed below.
- ISO 22000: A Food Safety Management System (FSMS) outlining the standards for quality, safety, processes, and documentation for food industries.
- ISO 13485: It specifies ISO compliance requirements for a QMS that allow medical devices and related organizations to meet customer requirements and regulatory standards.
- ISO 31000: A framework for designing, implementing, and maintaining a risk management system.
- ISO 19600: It provides guidelines for compliance management systems, ensuring good governance, transparency, and sustainability.
- ISO 14001: A framework for designing and implementing an organization’s Environmental Management System (EMS).
- ISO 27001: It helps determine if the company’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) can protect sensitive data.
- ISO 9001: It outlines the framework for an effective Quality Management System (QMS) in the organization.
- ISO 17025: This ISO standard lists guidelines for quality and competence in testing laboratories.
- ISO 45001: It outlines the health and safety management standards for the workplace.
ISO Standards Audit Checklists: Discover checklists for more ISO standards.
ISO Standard Compliance: Top Strategies and Best Practices to Maintain Them
ISO compliance is a process, not a destination. It requires continuous evaluation, training, and upgradation at all levels of the workforce in the organization.
Here are 6 popular strategies that top businesses apply to maintain ISO compliance:
1. Conduct Regular Internal Audits
Regular ISO internal audits act as a tool that helps companies maintain their compliant status or certification. They facilitate early identification and resolution of nonconformances before they become serious, saving businesses from reputational and financial damage.
Here’s how internal audits help in managing ISO standard compliance:
- They assess your organization’s processes and management systems against the ISO compliance requirements.
- They allow you to pinpoint gaps and areas of nonconformances.
- You can use internal audit data to develop clear and realistic plans to address the identified issues and make your processes ISO-compliant.
- If you are looking to get certified, internal audits will help you resolve issues before the official audit, avoiding any delays in certification.
ISO Audit Process: 5 Common Mistakes and Tips to Avoid Them
2. Introduce Continuous Training For Employees
ISO standards are inherently complex, and frequent updates add to the complexity. Ensuring your workers understand, stay updated, and implement standards, protocols, and best practices is difficult. Therefore, regular training programs for the workforce are inevitable.
Bring in experts who can simplify understanding and implementing ISO compliance. Make ISO standards part of your operational SOPs so that you can train your employees on the job.
To incorporate ISO standards into daily operations, break them down into clear, actionable, and easy-to-update checklist items that are easily accessible to workers.
Digitize ISO Compliance Checklists: Convert ISO standards into simple checklists that your workers can access on their mobile devices.
3. Make Top Leaders Commit to the Compliance Process
The success of ISO compliance in an organization depends on the leadership’s commitment. The top management needs to see the value of improved quality and efficiency. They should be consistently engaged for continued assistance and distribution of resources.
Design your workflow in such a way that top management receives regular updates. To save time, they should be able to get a bird’s-eye view of ISO compliance data and how it impacts business outcomes. This approach will ensure they remain invested in ISO implementation and compliance.
Automate Workflows: Set up custom workflows to keep leadership in the loop.
4. Stay Up to Date With ISO Standards
Companies must stay informed about the modifications and adjustments made to the ISO standards. To ensure compliance with frequent updates, companies should proactively identify updates related to their operations and quickly implement them in their management systems through training and SOPs.
5. Implement Robust Document Management Practices
ISO standard compliance has rigorous documentation requirements, which can become burdensome. Therefore, companies are encouraged to leverage technology that allows them to streamline workflows through collaborative editing and facilitates storing all documents – SOPs, templates, audit reports, training records, etc. – on a centralized platform.
6. Use ISO Compliance Software
Compliance management software can be a valuable tool for businesses to achieve and maintain ISO certification. With software, you can automate workflows, reporting, corrective action tracking, internal audit scheduling, and storing documents, saving you time and resources.
The software allows you to analyze your findings and identify areas for improvement. Furthermore, it makes it easier for different departments within your organization to collaborate on compliance efforts.
In short, ISO compliance tools can transform your compliance efforts from a burden to a strategic advantage, boosting efficiency and driving continuous improvement across your organization.
Stay ISO Compliant With GoAudits
Companies often need to comply with multiple ISO and other standards simultaneously. Whether tracking internal audits, corrective measures, or engaging with top management, keeping on top of compliance can feel daunting.
GoAudits compliance software simplifies tracking all compliance, including ISO compliance. With GoAudits, you can:
- Schedule and streamline regular compliance audits
- Identify, document, and categorize nonconformances
- Create workflows to keep the leadership in the loop
- Develop custom and easy-to-update digital ISO training checklists
- Delegate corrective actions to members within or outside the organization
- Store documents on the cloud to access them easily anytime
- Analyze the impact of ISO compliance on business
With a rating of 4.8 stars on Capterra, GoAudits is trusted by some of the biggest names in the manufacturing industry.
» Customer Success Story: How businesses leverage GoAudits to save time and improve operations.