- IAF Research Report:
- The Value of Accredited Certification
A recent report entitled “The Value of Accredited Certification” published by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) makes interesting reading as it represents valuable research into the views of stakeholders and users of accredited services & the opportunities for a value added outcome.
The survey looked at the views of 4,191 respondents across 41 different countries. The main accredited certification was for a quality management system (51%) with a healthy demand for environmental management systems at 18%.
The key drivers for achieving accredited certification was to improve the internal business operations and processes (47%) followed by customer requirements (32%) and regulatory requirements 13%).
There is a health demand for accredited certification with 91% of businesses reporting that they had selected an accredited certification body with 5%, puzzlingly, did not know the status of the certifying body and 4% stated that they used the services of a non-accredited body. The importance that the certification was covered by the IAF Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) was equally split between those business (35%), who found it essential or very important and a similar number (34%) confirmed that it was not important together with 10% of businesses, who did not know.
The main outcome from the research was:
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83% (1713) businesses agreed or strongly agreed that the certification process had added value to their organisation in some way. 17% of businesses confirmed that they had experienced a significant increase in sales as a direct result of their certification. A further 32% reported a minor rise in sales.
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2787 (79%) of businesses stated that achieving certification had helped them meet the requirements of regulators. In addition, 35% (1226) of respondents strongly agree and 46% (1622) agree that their certified status is important to their direct customers.
A copy of the IAF research report conducted can be found at http://bit.ly/KQsW7U