We are ISO:9001 certified: why is this good news?

Now that we are certified, the next audit is a follow-up session. In the meantime, we conduct internal audits to see how we can further improve our business processes to achieve our goals. One action point for Pauwels Consulting was document management. We now have a clear document management process that ensures that all documents and information available to Pauwels Consulting are managed efficiently and in a controlled manner. It has ensured that it is always clear where the final and current version of a document can be found, that this version is easily identifiable, and that document modification and security against changes has been made manageable.

An ISO 9001 certificate turns your company into a so called ‘paper tiger’

A well-known misunderstanding about ISO 9001 is that this standard creates bureaucratic companies. This is nonsense, of course, because the current ISO 9001 standard is actually very pragmatic. It is true that earlier versions of the standard required mandatory procedures. But much has changed since then and now the standard gives freedom as well as responsibilities to the company to determine the extent of their documented information themselves. Of course, this varies from company to company because it depends on the activities performed, the complexity of the processes, the products and services, and the competence of the employees. Of course, records are still needed to have confidence that the processes are carried out as planned.  This is why we choose, for example, to use our CRM application Bullhorn and other software applications to incorporate most of the registrations into our workflows and immediately facilitate the work of our employees.