ISO 9001 is an international standard laying down the requirements for a Quality Management System (QMS). The ISO 9001 certification allows companies to demonstrate that they are dedicated to providing quality services and goods by setting up mechanisms aimed at eliminating non-conformities and facilitating continual improvement of internal processes.
Quality in the localization industry is taken as a given. A client contacting a translation agency about a potential project is expecting a product that will meet tacitly-assumed quality standards so that it can be readily presented to end users. Any localization company that wants to stay in business must at some point introduce a quality management system. Of course, the client’s needs with respect to quality may differ depending on their priorities.
“Why do I have to report these particular metrics to my Director? I have no need for KPIs”. I’ve heard this so many times in all the companies where I’ve worked, and I continue to come across similar situations in numerous other businesses. People are often frustrated by the necessity of submitting reports to their superiors, and they feel that calculating KPIs is a loss of time. Their time.
15 years ago almost nobody in the language industry cared about ISO certification. The general level of knowledge about ISO standards, particularly ISO 9000 - the so-called quality standard, was very limited...
