Blackmores ISO Consultancy Service: The creators of isology®

To celebrate hitting 50 episodes, I wanted to bring to bring to you something a little extra special today. and that is ‘How to implement any ISO’, but before we do, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to all our listeners.  Keep sharing the ISO Love, and share this episode with anyone who is looking to take their business to the next level.

In this episode I take you through 4 simple steps to implementing any ISO Standard.

• Understanding your business (I mean really understand your business – warts and all!)
• Create
• Share
• Engage

When you break it down, the same ingredients apply to how you approach to implementing and ISO Standard.

To celebrate hitting 50 episodes, I wanted to bring to bring to you something a little extra special today. and that is ‘How to implement any ISO’, but before we do, I’d just like to say …….

Thank you, thank you, thank you – for listening in, and giving your time to listen to the ISO Show, I’ve loved recording the last 50 episodes with some amazing guests, and I really hope you’ve found them beneficial and taken away some great tips and insights into how other businesses have succeeded and how they’ve transformed their businesses with ISO Standards.  So I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to them too, if you did please could leave a review and hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, because that that means that we can continue to inspire and educate others, and it also means we can keep getting epic guests on the show.

I’d also like to give a quick shout out to Steph Churchman, our Communications Manager here at Blackmores, who has been my saviour in doing these recording – especially when we’ve had technical issues, and even lost guests midway through recording.  She’s been absolutely fabulous in making my vision for the ISO Show become a reality! So huge thank you Steph! You are a star!

So, onto today’s episode which is ‘How to implement any ISO Standard’ – you may think, hey that’s a bit of a bold statement, there are thousands of ISO Standards! Yep! But when you are implementing an ISO Standard to improve a business, there are a few secret ingredients, and I’m going to let you in on those today.  But I don’t just want to do that, I’m going to provide a free check-sheet on ‘How to implement any ISO Standard’ which will be available to download from the show notes.

I’m going to share with you our ISO Steps to Success – this is a proven methodology that, at we’ve refined over the last 14 years, and implemented for over 250 companies – 250 companies, in over 20 countries. Not only that – with a 100% success rate, yep, an awesome 100% success rate.  So here’s what we do

# 1   Understanding the organisation

You need to fully understand what your businesses biggest risks are but also establish where you most impactful opportunities are.

• Gap Analysis,
• Identify risks, opportunities, interested parties, – SWOT/PESTEL
• Understand legal requirements. – Statutory, regulatory and contractual requirements
• Finally – establish a clear SCOPE – what is your ISO Management system going to cover?

It’s only really when you’ve fully understood your organisation that you can create a roadmap to achieve success with where you are trying to get to.

# 2    Creation  

Create the Management System policies, procedures and templates – long gone are the days of Quality Manual or worse still ISO Manual – you label it to suit your company brand, culture and vision. Give it some thought, as this will be the central point that you want employees to go back to I they need any guidance and support on their way of working.  For the purposes of this podcast, I’ll simply refer to the Standards terminology of ‘Management System’.

So lets get down to the creation of your management system…..

Top tip alert – where the standard says ‘shall’ it is basically saying – don’t bullshit me – you’ve got to god damn have this in your system or it will fail an assessment!

So if the standard says’ top Management SHALL establish, implement and maintain an environmental Policy – it means, DO IT!

If the standard says ‘The organisation SHALL establish environmental objectives at relevant functions and levels – DO IT!

The standard is there to HELP your business, and it is crystal clear in the ‘SHALL’s’ exactly what you need to do to achieve success.

# 3 Sharing

There is no point having an awesome ISO Management System sitting in a manual or buried in a server somewhere if no one knows about it, or they can’t find it!

You need to SHARE it with everyone, after all its been created for the organisation to succeed – to be more profitable, productive, reduce risk, be more sustainable – so everyone needs to be AWARE of the management system AND be empowered to take responsibility for it!

There is no point in having an Information Security System in place, if know one knows what a security breach is in your business is or who to report it too!  What’s the point!

So you need to have….

• A Communications Plan – Internal Comms, External Comms – website, social, newsfeed.
• Awareness training (classroom or eLearning), recordings  
• Make it accessible – not everyone may have access to a PC – think outside the box – how can you get your ‘Way of Working’ to the workforce? – screens in meeting areas, virtual noticeboards.
• Themes – World Environment Day – Create a buzz, create energy and enthusiasm for getting involved and making a difference.  You can use this either for the launch or for refresher sessions.

 # 4 – Engagement

• You need to get the company ‘Way of working’ which are your policies and procedures, systems into the business DNA – be crystal clear on accountabilities and responsibilities.

Engagement is so critical to making this a success……

If you are launching a new client onboarding process to improve the customer experience – make it clear, how the process works, what results you expect to see, how you are going to monitor the results, and who is going to make it happen!

Get those responsible to own it and take pride in their achievements.

• Next, I know you may think you are wonderful, and I’m sure you are amazing, but in all honesty you can’t successfully embed an ISO System on your own!

In all businesses there are usually closet ISO Champions – just waiting to be asked to contribute – so why not encourage engagement?

Why not Create a hub for Champions? – give them the tools and platform to make it happen!

This isn’t just about when you launch a new ISO System, but to demonstrate how you are continually raising standards! so let’s say you have a Health and Safety System – ISO 45001 – Your H & S Champions could be championing the COVID-19 H & S Risk Assessments, controls and awareness for your employees across all area of your businesses.

Having these champions, will make Management’s life easier to communicate key issues and solutions, to create a better working environment and happier clients.

• Carrying out Internal Audits – So this another ‘Shall’.  It is not optional, and this is where ISO Standards can get bad press, as a result of lazy or incompetent auditors (or worse still lazy and incompetent) just using it as a ‘tick-box’ exercise.  Use this opportunity to really engage with your workforce – this is such a value tool in the tool box if done in the right way – it helps you to understand an employees:

• Level of understanding

• Opinions and views of the process

• Opportunities for improvement

• Gauge level of compliance and readiness for the assessment.

• Engaging in the Leadership Team through Management Review

So that’s it in a nutshell, that’s how you implement ANY ISO Standards. 

I’d love to hear what your top takeaways were on the show today, and share that with me, I absolutely love reading the reviews and suggestions.

Don’t forget to follow us on Linkedin. Also, ISO Show listeners will get a 10% discount on ISO Steps to Success, ISO Support Plans and ISO Elearning. Just quote ‘ISO Show’ in your enquiry.

………before I go I just wanted to say thank you so, so much for being here and  listening to the ISO Show, and showing up today – if you know anyone, colleagues, associates, friends in your life that would really benefit from having an awesome System in place to take their business to the next level – to be more efficient, sustainable and profitable then please share this episode with them.

Thanks once again for listening, and I look forward to catching you on the next ISO Show….

Awesome resources

ISO Steps to Success – Free consultation to discuss the feasibility of ISO for your business

ISO Support Plan – Free health check on your ISO Management System

ISO Elearning – Wide range of ISO Standards courses for just £50 per course.

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We often get asked which is the best ISO Standard to go for and what are the benefits.

In this week’s ISO Show we highlight the top 5 from the Annual ISO survey published by the International Standards Organisation.  Here’s a summary of the countdown, but worth noting are two runners up!

• Medical devices standard ISO 13485, which is most popular in the USA, followed by Germany.  Interestingly, this is the only standard where the USA is top of the charts.
• ISO 45001 the Health and Safety Standard.  For years, the predecessor the Occupational Health and Safety Standard 18001 was popular in manufacturing and construction, however since this standard became an ISO Standard a year ago it has seen a significant increase in demand, not only with OHSAS 18001 companies migrating to the new ISO standard, but new companies keen to commit to higher standards of Health and Safety.

So which ISO standard is the 5^th most popular in the world?:

Starting in reverse order, I’m going to give an overview of the top 5 standards.

#5  ISO 50001 the energy standard – When ISO 50001 was launched a few years ago, there was some debate about whether it was even worth having a standard for energy management – well clearly there is because thousands of organisations are treating their energy management very seriously by implementing an energy management system and getting certified.

#4  ISO 22000:2018 the food safety standard -countries that are taking the lead with this one – namely, China, Greece, India and Japan leading the way in food safety.

#3 ISO 27001 the Information Security Standard – Why has ISO 27001 become so popular?  Apart from governments putting pressure on businesses to secure personal data, businesses are demanding higher standards of protection for commercial data.  Now, there is a common misconception that ISO 27001 is just about data – well it’s not, it also covers Personnel and Physical security along with Business Continuity.

#2 ISO 14001 the Environmental Standard – All businesses should be accountable for their environmental footprint.  If we are to be carbon-neutral by 2050 we need a real mechanism for change, not just having a piece of paper labelled an ‘Environmental Policy’.  This is something, that I am personally extremely passionate about, and at Blackmores we will be focusing on how businesses can help to reverse the damage they are doing to the environment over the next decade.  It will not be easy, but it does have to be done, as we are putting our children, grand-children and future generations at significant risk by NOT doing anything.

So whether your organisation has a desire for ISO 14001 certification or not, I implore you to start today by considering how your company can be more efficient with your resources

If you’d like to find out more about this check out the ISO 14001 Steps to Success series, ISO Show # for the low-down.

#1 ISO 9001 the Quality Management Standard – Consumers will always expect high quality services and products, one may argue consumer demands are getting higher.  With over 1 million organisations certified globally, the economic benefits are clear, businesses need systems to operate efficiently to be profitable and demonstrate a commitment to quality to clients to retain their business, and win new business. 

Other resources: Annual ISO Survey

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In my experience, I would estimate that 8 times out of 10 organisations seek to achieve ISO certification to win new business, not necessarily to improve their business – sadly.  So, what is it about ISO Standards that is so attractive to prospective clients?  Why are they like gold dust in certain industries? And in some cases, a pre-requisite to tender?

One of the reasons is that certification to ISO Standards demonstrates credibility and confidence to stakeholders.  What this means is that a business is not just blowing their own trumpet, by saying how marvellous they are, an accredited certification body is independently verifying this against an internationally renowned standard of excellence.  Regardless of which ISO standard is implemented, it is recognised that if a company meets these high standards, they are practising what they preach and have a certificate to prove it.

Once a company is certified, they need to capitalise on the investment they have made (in terms of effort, time, resources and finance) to make the most of the opportunity, particularly when it comes to winning new business.  An ISO Standard can be viewed as a great tool for sales and marketing teams to have in their toolkit. 

If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

Some say, ‘it’s only a number, ISO 9001, ISO 14001’……… Well, those numbers add up, and add up to profit if used in the right way.  You should be referencing your ISO Standards (only UKAS Accredited Certifications of course) on your website, thus demonstrating leadership and commitment.  This includes the logo and a message from the CEO/Managing Director.  The ISO Standards logo and information related to your achievement could be referenced in proposals and tenders to give you a better chance of winning the contract.  Many Sales and Marketing Departments find it a blessing to have a well-structured and documented ISO Management System that they can easily extract key tender documents from i.e. Environment Policy, Complaints Procedure, company procedures, Business Continuity Plan, Customer Service KPI’s, plus many more, and therefore, making it easier for a Sales and Marketing Team to showcase why your business is as good as it is.

Some companies use the ISO logo’s on marketing collateral such as brochures, online E-brochures, business cards, newsletters, letterheads and catalogues to give them a competitive edge.  However, it can also be promoted via other visual methods i.e. sign-written vehicles, products, PowerPoint presentations and in-house company signage.

In some industries such as the Construction sector, it is much easier to win and retain valuable clients if you have certain ISO Standards – ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, or in the Technology sector, the expectation is to have ISO 27001 to ensure data assets are secure.

Where we have seen the greatest advantage for businesses, is where the early adopters embrace a new ISO standard to give them a competitive edge. For example, in 2018 we implemented BS 10012, the new Personal Information standard aligned with GDPR requirements.  More information will follow regarding early adopters and new standards in a forthcoming Blackmores blog.

For a ‘Winning new business with ISO Standards checklist’ please contact enquiries@blackmoresuk.com

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Organisations who hold ISO standards across the UK will all be looking to determine what they do next after 29th March 2019. The good news for organisations who hold ISO certifications is that they may be better positioned to cope with the impact of BREXIT than those who do not.

Organisations who hold ISO certifications have been required to give thought to the issues affecting the organisation (the key one being BREXIT!) and those interested parties that they will need to engage with both during and after BREXIT. This will no doubt include the stability and security of their supply chain and the needs of customers. With the focus on risk-based standards, this will increase focus on the risks and opportunities that BREXIT may bring. This enables these organisations to take the necessary actions to mitigate risks and establish objectives and actions to exploit opportunities.

Organisations with ISO standards will be thinking about their resources, the most important of these being human resources. A significant drop in EU workers in the UK will need to be plugged and those organisations the ISO standards will be investing in recruitment, training and upskilling of staff, supported by investment in the necessary infrastructure and facilities to ensure their products and services can continue to be delivered post BREXIT.

Organisations who hold ISO standards will be seeking improvement, backed by regular audits, supported by actions to address identified non-conformities and actions to address identified risks and opportunities, this will provide them with a leading edge and positions UK organisations at the front of the queue when competing on a global stage.

Let’s not forget that ISO certifications are recognised globally, so organisations who hold accredited ISO certifications hold a badge of credibility which is recognised across the globe and breaks down language barriers.

If you haven’t already done this, then you really should consider how ISO standards can support your business to ensure that quality, risk and sustainability can be assured after BREXIT. Blackmores can support your business to implement ISO standards across a range of subject areas and drive continual improvement within your business.

If you would like assistance with ISO standards, please contact us on: enquiries@blackmoresuk.com