Frequently Asked Questions

There are multiple benefits! This is an opportunity to become more resilient, boost performance, reduce risks, be more sustainable and improve your internal processes and company culture while embedding best-practice. You can read about the individual ISO standards and the benefits they offer here >

Not necessarily! Documents are created in order to put procedures, policies and best-practice into place. However we will manage this for you entirely, from the creation of the necessary documents, through to document control and management. We can even host it for you, if you wish.

We are keen to help you implement best practice vs just attempting a tick-box exercise to gain certification.

This is entirely up to you; we have some clients that we work with remotely 100% of the time, others who we always visit. Most have a mixture of both. We want to ensure you get a bespoke service, that suits your requirements. While we love seeing clients face to face, we also understand that you might be busy, and would prefer us to work off-site meeting with you via video call when needed.

This depends on a variety of factors, including the size of your organisation, how many sites you have and what standard(s) you wish to implement, as well as what you already have in place. We have helped organisations achieve certification within three months, while others prefer to take their time and request we do this over the course of a year. We will discuss your requirements with you, but will always aim to do it as efficiently as possible.

We have worked with many organisations that are reluctant to change so we can help your team to understand why implementing an ISO management system is beneficial.

We work with people at all levels of a business, from owners and senior leaders to middle management and those on the ‘shop floor’. We can help you embed a culture of continual improvement.

Yes, it’s a requirement that the senior team are invested in the ISO management system in order to embed best practice, and a culture of continual improvement. However: this doesn’t mean they have to do lots of work. We make it engaging, easy and - with our experience visiting lots of clients - worthwhile. Most business owners and senior leaders find our time with them invaluable.

Every journey is unique, but it usually looks something like this:

1. An initial review and GAP Analysis so we can understand what you’ve got in place already.

2. Development of your ISO management system.

3. Stage 1 Assessment with your certification body. (CB)

4. Further consultancy; we support you to be ready for:

5. Stage 2 Assessment with your certification body (CB). Assuming you pass, you will then receive your certificate.

After this, we usually support our clients on an ongoing basis to maintain and improve their system, including keeping up to date with any relevant legislative updates, organising internal audits and management reviews. Your CB will re-visit on a yearly basis to ensure you’re maintaining your system and continually improving.

We’ll support you throughout.

Having worked with 100’s of organisations, we can adapt our approach to suit your unique requirements.

We have worked with clients in:

Financial & investment services, healthcare (including the NHS), facilities & property management, utilities & energy, public services, local government & councils, education, transport & distribution, vehicle maintenance & repair, retail & hire, motorsports teams, arboriculture, construction, civil engineering & highways, manufacturing & assembly, mechanical & electrical (M&E) contractors, waste management & environmental services, testing, research laboratories & technical services, information technology (IT) & telecommunications, software development, professional services & consultancy, recruitment, aggregates & mineral products, event management and structures… and more!

Costs can vary; it depends how many standards you want to work with, the size of your organisation and the level of risk.

For example, a construction company with multiple sites is going to present a higher health and safety risk (ISO 45001) than an organisation who only works in one office location.

However, perhaps that organisation has a higher risk when it comes to cyber security (ISO 27001) and also wants to prioritise psychological health and safety in their workplace (ISO 45003).

We’ll ask you some basic questions and then be able to estimate the amount of time required to support you.

Contact us for a customised quote >

In order to prove your organisation meets the requirements of a standard, you can ask for a third-party Certification Body (CB) to assess your system and, assuming you meet the requirements, you will receive a certificate.

Accreditation is where a governing body (e.g. UKAS) review the CB, to ensure they are carrying out impartial assessments to a set criteria.

There are many CB’-s who provide certification, but not all are accredited. This is a little like having someone come to inspect your boiler at home, who is not Corgi-registered. Without accredited certification, your certificate lacks credibility.

We also find that clients receive much higher value from accredited certification bodies, as their audits are usually more comprehensive.

We’ll discuss this with you as each organisation is unique and has different requirements. We do strongly recommend you only choose an accredited CB - however we will work happily with whomever you chose.

Any recommendation we give you is impartial, based on our experience of working with 100’s of clients. The majority of our clients choose BSI.

No. This would lack impartiality and credibility. If you want to achieve certification, you’ll need an impartial third-party certification body to come in and assess the system. We’ll be there to support your assessment as we know what they’ll be looking for.

You don’t have to obtain certification, however. For example, some clients implement an ISO 22301 Business Continuity management system, which does not require certification.

Nope! It’s best to think of an audit as an opportunity to find areas to improve.

If we are auditing you, then rest assured we will put you at ease, provide regular breaks and make it straight forward.

If you have a third-party audit with a CB, we’ll be there to manage the process, handle enquiries, and support your team. We work with CB’s regularly, so we’re highly experienced and know exactly what to expect.

We try to avoid jargon as much as possible, but our friendly consultants are very approachable so please ask if you need us to explain something.

We have also put together a jargon-buster, that includes all the acronyms you can imagine along with a few other helpful hints.

You can find it here >

You can read more about our approach, and why you should pick us, here >