How the ISO 9001 Certification Can Help SMEs to Mitigate Challenges
Managing a business for the SMEs is challenging indeed. With limited resources and defined objectives to fulfil, things become quite critical to figure out the ideal way to get rid of all types of obstacles and run your business smoothly. In this context, achieving the ISO 9001 certification has always proved to be helpful as it allows small and medium sized enterprises to find out and implement the corrective actions for improving their organizational productivity. In this article, you will be able to get a detailed overview on how the ISO 9001 standard can help SMEs to mitigate the different types of adversities faced by them.
Inability to clear the debts on time
SMEs often fail to pay their debts on time which is mostly due to having too much debt and inability to manage the cash flow efficiently. However, by adhering to the customer focus principle of the ISO 9001, small businesses get the scope to develop a customer-centric business model. In this way, you can stay aware of your customer expectations and adapt the cash flow accordingly. Thereby making sure that both your debtors and customers are satisfied.
Inability to reserve capital
It’s undoubtedly tough for SMEs to reserve sufficient capital for crisis times. A crisis time can be any situation such as supply chain problems or a seasonal slowdown when it becomes tough for the enterprises to cover the costs and maintain the operations smoothly. As ISO 9001 gives strong emphasis on following a proactive approach and implementing the preventative measures accordingly. It will allow you to optimize the use of resources so that your organization doesn’t face any scarcity while fulfilling the objectives. It will also drive you to document all the corrective measures in place and help your employees to react in the right way while dealing with unwanted situations like increase in cost of materials, utilities, and labour.
Inability to manage overexpansion
Growth is desirable for every business, but rapid growth within a short span of time often come with a number of issues, which can prove to be detrimental for the organization. By getting your company ISO 9001 certified, you will be able to have better control ofyour growth. By setting realistic goals and expanding, as per your available resources and needs, you would be able to forecast how such new operations will be able to affect your organization. This in turn, will help you to figure out how your employees will react to the changes.
Inability to implement a strong business plan
For most SMEs, a business plan works as just a checkbox, which you need to have as a criterion for securing investment. After the investment is made, not much emphasis is left on the business plan. In reality, a business plan plays a much more important role than the initial investment. It is a purposeful document which allows you to stay aware of the challenges you will face in the future. It compels you to consider your management and marketing plans, financial needs, competitive market scenario, and overall strategy. The ISO 9001 allows you to communicate the details of your business plan in every sphere of your company so that you can operate in a more organized way.
Inability to adapt
To survive in this cutthroat competitive business landscape, your business needs to be dynamic and proactive. While following a proactive approach, you need to identify and capitalize on the thriving opportunities from changes in customer needs. By getting your SME business ISO 9001 certified, you would be able to focus on your customer needs and improve the quality of your products and services consistently, thereby gaining a competitive edge in the market.
Inability to offer responsive customer care
SMEs often face failure due to incompetence of employees to maintain prompt customer service. But when you have an ISO 9001 compliant QMS in your organization, it becomes easy to meet the customer expectations and satisfy them by implementing a well-operated customer service care unit. It will help you to develop the processes, procedures, and systems while making it more customer-centric. With the regular audits of internal processes, you would be able to ensure that they are focused on customer satisfaction. By measuring the level of customer satisfaction with the help of key metrics, you would be able to plan and implement the measures for ensuring customer retention and repeat purchases as well.
The bottom line
Achieving the ISO 9001 certification can undoubtedly prove to be highly rewarding for SMEs. And thus, you shouldn’t avoid it if you’re concerned about your organizational growth and progress. So, the most needful step you can take is to hire an experienced ISO consultant who is efficient enough in evaluating your business from the very start and suggest effective measures and actions to get it certified.
Author Bio:
Damon Anderson is one of the most acclaimed ISO consultants who has earned wide reputation for offering skilled consultation to businesses seeking to achieve different ISO certifications. Being extremely fond of reading and writing, he also likes to pen down blogs and articles on a number of relevant topics including benefits of ISO 9001 certification, tips to achieve ISO 14001 certification, and more.
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Business Name: Compliancehelp Consulting, LLC
Email Id: info@quality-assurance.com
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