Guarding your business: keep your company legal, compliant and growing

Sep 1, 2022

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Many governments have announced their intention to reduce “red tape” and bureaucracy, yet the growth in rules and regulations that an SME has to comply with continues to grow. Brexit promised a reduction of European involvement, but to date we are still committed to much European legislation, and it seems likely that there will be some kind of link for many years to come.

So, when you are up to your neck in finding new customers, looking after those you already have, making sure your suppliers are delivering what you want, when you want it, keeping your eye on the competition and industry developments, and making sure employees are doing what you employ them to do, how do you also keep track of your responsibilities to the environment, health and safety and keep the business legally compliant?

ISO standards can help manage a business!

In their very simplest form, ISO’s 9001, 14001, 45001, 27001 are guidance notes to show how a business can reduce risks to a product or service quality, environmental impact, health and safety or the security of your information.

The fact that implementing and being certified against them can open doors to new markets and customers is an added bonus which makes them even more valuable.

But the standards themselves were originally intended as best practice guidance to help businesses manage risks and concerns which are not always obvious when your focus HAS to be on keeping the business growing and paying its bills.

ISO Standards can help!

Originally quite bureaucratic and very difficult to follow, more recently these standards have been simplified and brought into a standard format. This means that the structure and format of the standards are almost identical, its only how you address the risks relating to the individual subjects (quality, environment, health and safety, information security etc) which change.

This means that in developing a scheme to address one standard, its relatively easy to then add the risks and controls to another subject, even if you don’t go for certification against that standard. Hence, an existing ISO 9001 system can easily be used to manage environmental, health and safety and information security, giving you compliance to ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 27001 relatively easily. Such systems are known as “Integrated Systems” and are a very cost-effective way for a company to keep aware and up to date with compliance in many different fields.

How Can we Help?

If you are interested in an Integrated System written around your unique business, but compliant with ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, 27001 or any of the growing list of management system standards why not drop us a line and find out how a concise, business focussed system can help your company?

If you need assistance with any element of ISO certification or accreditation, please feel free to contact us by going here.