siliconindia | | Jan - March 201919ISO 9001, a widely implemented international standard for quality management system (QMS) requirements, has seen close to 1.2 million certifications worldwide. First released in 1987, the requirements underwent major changes over these years. Of the new requirements added. Context of the organization The international standard requires the organization to determine external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and strategic direction and that affect its ability to achieve the intended result(s) of its quality management system. Examples of external issues could be threats to information security and the availability of key talent due to changes in immigration policies. Internal issues could include a lack of IT infrastructure to support strategic goals and objectives. Items in this category are typically reviewed during the strategic planning process.Interested parties and requirementsAnother ISO 9001 requirement is to identify all relevant interested parties for your management systems and their requirements. For an IT team, typically interested parties are the organization's customers, internal users (employees), subcontractors, outsourced services providers, the organization's shareholders (or owners), regulatory bodies, and even your competition and political groups and lobbyists. All these interested parties have requirements. An organization's customers and internal users require a secure and reliable IT system. In gathering adequate market intelligence, your organization requires outpacing the competition. Your policy management team should keep themselves abreast of market changes like net neutrality and privacy policies to assess the impact to your business. By helping your IT team to brainstorm, identifying all relevant interested parties applicable to your organization and their requirements; you will develop a management system that is both customer-focused and business value added.LeadershipThe standard also assigns top management with the responsibility of demonstrating leadership for and commitment to the quality management system. This is accomplished by ensuring that the resources needed for the quality management system are available to staff. The resources include people, process, infrastructure, software, hardware, mobility, storage, work environment, and anything else required to make your organization's system more effective.Risk-based thinkingIn order to prevent major issues, proactively anticipate issues, and exploit new opportunities, your organization should periodically identify new risks, evaluate existing ISO 9001-WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME?By Govind Ramu, Senior Director Global Quality Management Systems, SunPower CorporationGovind RamuCXOINSIGHTS
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