Remote ISO 9001 Implementation Opens Certification Options to Smaller Companies

At the risk of being ghoulish, at least one tiny sliver of a silver lining has emerged: companies are now more acclimated to accepting “remote work” than they were prior to COVID-19. This is because before we were forced to interact remotely, few people had fully imagined remote work to begin with, and even less had confidence in it. Now, however, we see that it works.

For ISO 9001 implementation, there is almost no need to perform the work on-site. The biggest challenge has been conducting internal audits, which is now remote using various applications like MS teams, zoom etc.

The biggest benefits, however, are that remote implementations can be faster and less expensive. Let’s take the cost factor first.

Obviously travel expenses are a huge part of any on-site implementation project. Typically, they can comprise between 30-50% of the final costs, depending on your location. (Expenses in the New Delhi area, for example, can be triple those of a client in Chennai.) This means by opting for a remote implementation, the overall costs are reduced dramatically.

There’s also the possibility of obtaining a reduced day rate for the work itself. Auditors of small certification audits group drop manhour rate a bit because it’s far, far easier for them to commute from their one room to home office and work on a client for 8 hours, rather than having 24 hours a day dedicated to hotel stay, travel, etc. When you’ve travelled for a client, you may only be on-site for 8 hours, but you’re essentially “captive” during your entire travel period. With remote work, that disappears.

(Oddly, I’ve seen some consultants and registrars raise their rates for remote work, which makes no sense. If you see that, run.)

Auditors are famous for burning up hours of an audit talking about themselves, retelling old tales, and spouting nonsense to try and fill up their audit time. Consultants aren’t immune from this either, and I myself have fallen into the trap when someone asks me about some article I’ve written, or the latest ISO news.

With remote implementations, there’s no break room to lounge around in and gab. There are no long jaunts to the restaurant for lunch. There’s no hallway banter or water cooler chatting. No endless trips to the coffee pot. You do the work, you finish. Done.

As a result, I have found we can accomplish a typical management review meeting in about 2/3 of the time, with similar results for internal audits. People wonder why it goes so fast, until they realize that so much of the on-site interaction was non-work related.

These reductions in cost and improvements in speed open ISO 9001 to companies that might otherwise not afford it, nor want to chew up any extra time than what is necessary. This means more companies can gain access to improved customers by obtaining certification, which allows them to compete with their bigger (and better funded) competitors.

It levels the playing field.

There are risks, though. Some consulting programs are horrible to begin with and worsen with online interaction. I’ve heard horror stories of how the consultant didn’t show up (log in) in time, had technical issues with connectivity or simple phone reception, or couldn’t be heard on the other side of the line. The bigger problem reported by multiple users was that the consulting output seemed worse than what they might have gotten in person, because they were not given an opportunity to see the work unfold in front of them. Instead, they were handed copy-and-paste, rushed documents or reports and given no opportunity to correct them in real time.

To overcome this, clients must be sure to engage with the remote consultant/ Quality Team of the organization, and demand that documents and materials be shown as they are being worked — whether through document sharing or simple email.

This “consultant/ Quality Team oversight” is less than what one would do if the consultant/ Quality Team members were on-site requiring constant attention, escorting and handling. But it’s important.

So, if there’s any benefit to this COVID-19 mess, perhaps it’s that it has opened our eyes to new ways of doing work. In this case, it may allow companies to pursue ISO 9001 that might never have attempted it before.