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Among the 19,500 business and technology standards that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) supports, perhaps none is more popular than ISO 9001 - with good reason.

An organization鈥檚 ISO 9001 accreditation says the enterprise applies rigorous quality management systems. Accreditation confers a badge of credibility that customers trust. Even firms not obligated to maintain ISO 9001 certification will do so anyway because of the message it conveys: Best Practices Followed Here.

ISO says some 1.1 million businesses and organisations worldwide have achieved ISO 9001 certification. The accreditation process involves extensive external audits of an organization鈥檚 procedures to promote continual improvement, build quality in supplier-customer relationships, disseminate good managerial practices organizationwide, and more.

And ISO 9001 standards are only becoming more rigorous. For example, new 2015 standards require even more risk management integration across a company鈥檚 quality assurance/ quality control (QA/QC) management systems.

According to the ISO committee publishing the 2015 revision to 9001 standards, the main changes address 鈥渁 greater focus on the customer, risk-based thinking, aligning quality management system policy and objectives with the strategy of an organization, and greater flexibility with documentation.鈥� Industry experts say 鈥渞isk management systems鈥� are the main watchwords with the 9001 revision.

Certification is painstaking to achieve. Before the external auditor comes knocking, ready to poke through a firm鈥檚 documents to assess whether its ISO procedures are actually practiced or are merely theories, the organization must internally test its quality manage- ment systems (QMS) and processes. ISO 9001 certification is an administrative challenge. The trick for any organization is to manage risk and quality without burdening the enterprise with time- and creativity-sapping overhead.

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