BULK GROUP OBTAINS ISO9001 CERTIFICATION

Our COO Aaron Devincentis has been dedicated over the past 6 months to bring Bulk’s ambitious ISO Certification goal to fruition. Today as we formally announce our success in becoming certified, Aaron shares an insight into his journey to obtain accreditation for Bulk Group’s commitment to meeting the International Organisation for Standardisation’s criteria.

When you hear the words ISO certification, it can be pretty intimidating, given we have all heard stories of businesses engaging in hectic shifts of change management to realign their business to meet elements of the standard for receiving accreditation.

So why put your business through the disruption, cost and resource drain for a certificate like ISO9001? One answer is simply because you don't know what you don't know! The ISO journey will turn over rocks in your business. You will undoubtedly discover weaknesses you were unaware of and, perhaps even more surprising, hidden strengths you never knew existed.

When our Managing Director set the goal for ISO certification in 2021, I was initially sceptical about whether this objective was even possible for us, given we were a reasonably young business, only just celebrating our first 10 years at the start of 2022. In partnership with the capable team at ISOpro, perhaps surprisingly I quickly learned that our business governance had a strong baseline that we could build on and fortify. Our ISO journey highlighted that Bulk were informal with our existing processes and business governance however while we could not define the processes immediately upon exploration, we did uncover a far more established business structure than first expected.

With our business maintaining sustained growth over its life cycle, we have endured the subsequent growing pains with most companies at our age. In response to this, we adapted and evolved the company by quickly establishing informal processes and controls. ISO certification provided the catalyst to frame and formalise these controls within our newly established quality management system and is the bedrock supporting the key elements.

The common motivation for ISO certification is often commercial to open new doors to sales opportunities as an internationally recognised, quality business. This is undoubtedly one of the primary goals. Understandably however, it may be hard to place a monetary value on the changes this certification makes to the efficiency and effectiveness of your overall business governance at a fundamental level. However, the inability to directly measure the impact of formalising processes and procedures and the short-term challenges involved in re-aligning your operation shouldn't act as a deterrent against pursuing ISO certification. After all, standards aren't what you preach; they are what you tolerate. This is why we advocate that getting your business bones right will be the first foundational step to setting your organisation up for those new opportunities.

After a six-month project, we are pleased to announce we achieved ISO9001 certification last week; Bulk Group is excited to sink its teeth into our ongoing push for improved quality business standards and further accredited certification.

Like many journeys, it's not how you start that counts but how you finish. For Bulk Group, this is only the beginning.

We look forward to sharing more on our journey through ISO certification into the future.