[0:15] Alec – Hello and welcome to the SME Business Show with me, Alec Drew. Each show focuses on one particular topic and so we invite an expert from that sector to share their knowledge and tips to help you with your business. Today’s topic is ISO accreditation and I’m delighted to be joined by Vincent Delaney, Partner of Enable ISO. Hello Vincent.

[0:38] Vincent – Thank you for having me, Alec.

[0:40] Alec – Delighted to have you here. Let’s just start with an easy question and we’ll clear this up. I’ve mentioned ISO, but most people in business call it I-S-O. Tell us what is correct and what we should be saying.

[0:51] Vincent – Correctly, the word is ISO. It comes from the Greek letter ISO, which means same or similar, because all the best organisations in the world operate to that same high standard, the same high standard.

[1:05] Alec – Fantastic. So, there’s a piece of knowledge starting off on the programme. Everybody’s been educated it’s now ISO, so I shall remember that. What typically sort of size companies does your company work with?

[1:18] Vincent – Yeah, we work from typically from maybe 10 or 15 employees up to maybe 80 because the larger organisations tend to have their own quality department and they can do this for themselves. If they don’t have that, we’re always there to talk with them.

[1:37] Alec – So you won’t turn them away?

[1:38] Vincent – Won’t turn them away.

[1:39] Alec – Why do companies engage in the process of ISO?

[1:42] Vincent – There’s two drivers for this. The first one is, is that’s happening more and more that the large organisations are saying to their smaller suppliers that they need to be able to guarantee the quality of the delivery of their products and services. In fact, some even tell them they need to go and get the appropriate ISO standards if they want to stay doing business. The second reason is, is that as Tendium becomes more and more common, Organizations are being required in the tendering process to be able to demonstrate or prove how they can demonstrate quality of the provision of their products and services. And the way to do that simply is having an ISO standard, the appropriate ISO standard.

[2:27] Alec – In terms of tenders, it’s often hidden within the documentation. Maybe give our audience a sort of taste of how that sort of shows itself.

[2:35] Vincent – It might be there explicitly. Or it’s often in subtly, somewhere in the requirements of responding to the tender. And that is, it might say, please demonstrate how you would guarantee the quality of your products and services. And it’s there, subtly in there. And the answer really they’re looking for is, where’s your ISO standard?

[2:59] Alec – Well, now I do know that a lot of companies take it on board because they want to grow their business and there’s an expectation sort of from global organisations that they wish to do business with, that they have it.

[3:12] Vincent – Yes, global organisations or large indigenous Irish companies or even government departments are more and more going down the tendering route and insisting, even if they’re not perfect themselves or high quality themselves, they can very easily, because of their size, demand it from their smaller suppliers.

[3:31] Alec – And I suppose what we’re seeing with government tenders and a lot of others, that so many people are sort of clamouring to get on board in the tendering process, that they’re having to find ways, and I won’t say exclude, I think that might be a bit tough, but to promote people to a higher level and give them extra points.

[3:47] Vincent – Yeah, as even though tendering is becoming more and more the norm, there’s more and more SMEs or companies competing for those projects, for those contracts. And so the assessors need to have a way, an easy way of reckoning and ranking. Maybe not excluding, as we were saying earlier, but ranking.  So it means if you have a way of demonstrating high quality, you’ll go a couple of notches. But if you can demonstrate it by way of an ISO certification, an appropriate one, you’ll get notched, you’ll get ranked higher and higher.

[4:20] Alec – Yes, and of course the points are most important and they can be very few in the difference between winning and losing a tender.

[4:26] Vincent – That’s right. A couple of, and depending on the amount of points, because they do use then a lot of them, tendering have a balanced scorecard. So it’s kind of a numbers game. And the more you can demonstrate quality, the more points you get. It might be excluded, but then if you have the ISO standards on top of that, you know, you could jump up several notches and get over that line and be shortlisted or selected.

[4:50] Alec – Let’s say that I have a company and I see a tender that I’m particularly interested in, but it’s asked for ISO. I’m nearly doing it myself, there we go. The old habits die hard, the ISO accreditation. What can I do? Do I have to forget about it or is there a way I can get myself on board?

[5:09] Vincent – With our organisation, what we do or we can do is give a letter of engagement. And that means a genuine commitment for us to provide those services, to bring you up to that standard, and a commitment from the SME, from the company, that they will commit to go on the ISO journey. We’re very particular about giving that letter of engagement out because it has legal implications on it, on both parties. And that in itself gives a clout, improves the position of that company starting out on the ISO journey.

[5:45] Alec – So I might get an extra few points for having this sort of letter available to me.

[5:50] Vincent – Definitely.

[5:50] Alec – Alright. Do you come across companies, for example, that say they want it, but really have no commitment to it?

[5:57] Vincent – We do, and as a policy we don’t deal with companies like that. It doesn’t work for either of us. It frustrates both companies, both us and theirs. And they end up spending a lot of money on it as well as time, and it doesn’t usually work out. In fact, if it’s done badly, it can affect the morale of the organisation. We’ll say the managers, if the CEO is pushing hard and the managers don’t get it, or the managers want it and the CEO has no idea what’s it about, but then it doesn’t work and it can cascade, affect morale. And low morale, you know, can affect customer service, product delivery, service delivery, everything with low morale.

[6:39] Alec – So I suppose in terms of how that sort of manifests itself is the CEO says, yes, let’s get ISO accreditation and then delegates it to a team and walks away and leaves them to go along their own route.

[6:52] Vincent – The answer is no. In fact, one of the clauses in it is called leadership and the CEO, well the phrase is top management across the board, including the CEO, the language they use is communicate, support, delegate, all those kind of words. So the CEO from the top down need to be really, really buying in to the implementation and the maintenance of any ISO standard and we insist on that.

[7:19] Alec – So, we’re talking about the Chief Operations Officer, the Chief Technical Officer, Procurement, Chief Financial Officer, we’re looking for top management must buy into the whole process.

[7:28] Vincent – Must buy in and when we engage with an organisation, for us typically, at maybe the pre-sales stage or after the contract, we want to meet with those top managers you’re talking about and listen to what the questions that they have and from that we can sense the type of buy-in that we’re getting. And often by us answering those questions to their satisfaction, whatever doubts they have, we really then can go for that 100% buy-in and engagement, from top management, senior management, CEO.

[8:01] Alec – You mentioned the word morale and that’s very, very important in today’s organisation. You’ve also mentioned it in terms of from the management side and being engaged, but it does filter down further through the accreditation process.

[8:15] Vincent – Yes, morale, in fact, I don’t want to get into detail, in the ISO standard there’s a whole section on employees, on empowering them, training them, resourcing properly, not understaffing. And all of that is for the betterment of the actual individual employees doing the work. And it even goes so far in the support clause, it talks about avoidance of burnout and stress. The actual standards require you to ensure that you have high morale with your employees.

[8:52] Alec – I suppose in the world that we’re in today, staff engagement, staff retention, is paramount to most organisations. So, I won’t say it’s a by-product of ISO accreditation, but it helps an organisation very much so.

[9:07] Vincent – Totally, ISO standards are all about a well-run organisation, right through the organisation. It’s not about forcing ways, putting in micromanagement and that, it’s the opposite. It’s being able to put in systems and processes that run to the betterment of the CEO all the way down, and not even just employees, but to the suppliers and the customers and other interested parties in it, and everybody benefits from it, right across the organisation.

[9:35] Alec – So it’s vitally important that not alone the top management take it on board, but equally that the employees are brought in at an early stage to understand what the value of it is and why it fits within the culture of what they’re doing.

[9:47] Vincent – That’s right, you mentioned the word culture. It really is, the ISO standard is a complete management system across every part of the organisation, both strategically and tactically from the top to the bottom. And yeah, it needs to go right down to each individual understanding. Where they fit into this system of doing things to the best of their ability and being supported by their team leaders and management in doing that.

[10:15] Alec – And of course that will bring many benefits to an organisation in terms of consistency of quality and delivery.

[10:22] Vincent – That’s the essence of ISO, is doing things consistently and actually, clause 10, is continual improvement. So when you improve things, by introducing a standard, you don’t just get a step improvement, you get continual improvement month after month, year after year, by doing things properly and improving things, putting things in to make it better, and maybe taking steps out of what you’re doing to improve your quality and your throughput.

[10:49] Alec – And so therefore that’s why there’s a continuous evaluation of the process year in, year out, as you said, not just to insert things but also to remove maybe things that are no longer relevant.

[11:00] Vincent – That didn’t add value. Yes, it’s, as I say, it’s a system. And that means it’s not just you do it once a year or once a quarter, or there’s an auditor coming in to see how things are going. No, it’s there all the time. And in fact, even on a daily basis, the standards talk about risk-based thinking, and a process approach to running your business. So it really is, it’s there all the time as a support, as a direction, and as a quality way of doing things.

[11:33] Alec – So, I’m thinking of introducing ISO accreditation into the business. Where do I start with that process?

[11:42] Vincent – Well, you can start with contacting us and what we’ll do is we will sit and have a conversation usually with top management to see if the right understanding there, the right mindset, we can explain exactly how it works, the immediate benefits of it, the long term benefits of it and then when we get that kind of commitment then now we know we can do business.

[12:04] Alec – Yes, so you need a demonstration of a commitment from the organization that’s embarking on this journey.

[12:11] Vincent – Yes, that’s right. But one of our phrases is that we ensure that everything you do for your ISO standard makes sense to your organisation.

[12:22] Alec – Yes, so you’re not just imposing some sort of regime. It has to fit with what you do.

[12:27] Vincent – And they say, yes, we get that. That’s a good idea. We’ll do that. And if they don’t, we encourage them to push back and say, no, we don’t get the worthwhileness of this particular introduction of something to do, right. And that means, but would you go on your ISO journey, it starts making sense. You know, everything you do, that falls into place.

[12:49] Alec – I suppose one of the big questions, and I’m sure you’re asked it on a regular basis, what sort of investment do I need to make in terms of money and time to get involved in this whole process?

[12:59] Vincent – Well, okay, let’s talk money. Now for the smaller end of it, simpler organisations, you know, straightforward business, in one location, we’ll start out, it costs typically 10,000 euros to achieve your certification from our pricing point of view. If it’s a larger or more complex organisation or multiple locations, then that goes up.

[13:22] Alec – Sure. Are you expecting people to sort of put that money up front or how do you know?

[13:27] Vincent – Typically the life cycle to accreditation is over a 12 month period. Ergo, we have, it’s on a monthly pricing untiil you get to your ISO accreditation.

[13:39] Alec – So it can be put out over that.

[13:41] Vincent – Yeah.

[13:41] Alec – In terms of delays, what are the things likely from your experience that sort of cause delays and then take this project well over the year that might be there?

[13:53] Vincent – Before I, could I just go back and just say, if you talk about the expense of it, then you can miss the point, it’s an investment. The return should be many fold from that investment of 10,000.

[14:05] Alec – I suppose that’s one of the key things that you need to reinforce to the client because you know yourself, most people in business see everything as a cost and don’t see it as an investment, hence that’s why I use the word.

[14:16] Vincent – Yes.

[14:16] Vincent – Yeah.

[14:17] Vincent – We expect that from fairly early on, from starting out on the journey, the top management are seeing the benefits straight off.

[14:28] Alec – In essence, how long will it be? You’ve just mentioned it there early on. Are we talking about months? or are we talking about weeks, that we’ll start seeing the benefit of our investment?

[14:38] Vincent – I’m saying immediately, you should start seeing benefits. There should be a couple of aha moments. Why did we not put that in place? That’s a great idea. Let’s do it tomorrow. And benefits are accruing from the first month of our engagement.

[14:51] Alec – I’ve heard many sort of business owners in the past talk about ISO accreditation and, my goodness, it’s an arduous journey and we wonder why we did it and all of that. that. What would you say to people who talk in that way or hear people talking about that?

[15:06] Alec – I would say if you have a perspective or maybe you want to bring somebody in to assist in that journey, tease out how they operate. Are they going to go for rules and regulations and talk at you and put demands on you? We pride ourselves in making that journey even interesting and pleasant and rewarding and we have a way, we pride ourselves in able to explain why something is worth doing and we encourage people to push, as I said earlier, to push back and say no no I don’t get that. So we really take time out so that the everyone in the organisation that we connect with gets it and sees the worthwhileness of it.

[15:52] Alec – I suppose those sort of naysayers have come from a past where ISO would have been associated mainly with manufacturing and nothing else. However, that landscape has changed. It’s now relevant to organisations virtually in every sector, including services.

[16:06] Vincent – That’s right. As I said earlier, it doesn’t matter what sector, what business, we can work with them on their ISO standard. We just need to know that it’s worthwhile for them to go for that standard. Which means is, are they doing business with corporates, are they doing business with government departments, are they doing business internationally? And once we understand that they will definitely get a gain from the ISO standard, we work with them, right? So that they realise the end game.

[16:38] Alec – I suppose, and finally, do you find anybody looking for ISO accreditation that really it’s not suitable for? And I don’t mean those that are not, you know, invested in the procedure, but really it’s just not relevant to their business.

[16:49] Vincent – Yeah, well, the relevance, as I said just a minute ago, it’s relevant if it’s corporate or government, then it’s relevant to them. If not now that they need to have the standard, it’ll come. They’ll get a call or a communication to say, by the way, if you want to continue doing business. But the thing to check is, for an organisation is, they could contact their customers and say, by the way, if I was to go on this ISO journey or get the accreditation. Does it make any difference? And if all their customers or their potential customers or whoever they’re going to say, no, it doesn’t make any difference, you know, then don’t go down that road because you’d be just disappointed. Right. And we absolutely, we need to be absolutely sure from the get go that the companies we deal with will benefit from us. Otherwise we back off and say, you need to rethink this.

[17:41] Alec – So therefore I think it’d be worthwhile including it in a SWOT analysis and just asking the question annually to see if it’s relevant that you move forward in that way?

[17:50] Vincent – Yes, we have a client that stopped around COVID because of the nature of the business and they changed from providing, it’s actually building materials, to the large builders. And they had a happy with their ISO standards, several ISO standards, but the model changed and they were now dealing more and more with retail and small outlets and everything like that. And they said, no, we have to rethink, is this ISO of benefit to us? Actually, they came back and said, yes, it is, we want to keep it because we don’t care who knows it. We know internally, it, what was the MD’s phrase? It keeps us on the straight and narrow to keep the quality in it. But so they had a reason to keep the ISO standards going, was for internal reasons.

[18:38] Alec – Okay, I think that’s a very positive story. Where can people find out more about Enable ISO?

[18:42] Vincent – On our website is enable-iso.com and it’s .com because we have some international business. So again it’s enable-iso.com, and for me it’s vincent at enableiso.com.

[19:02] Alec – A special thanks to our guest today, Vincent Delaney, partner of Enable ISO for coming into the SME Business Show and sharing so many valuable tips around ISO accreditation. If anything we discussed today resonated with you, why not reach out to us across any of the social media platforms SME Business Show. Thank you for your company and we look forward to seeing you again soon.