Pricing

Some standards are more complex to implement than others. ISO 27001, the information security standard is probably the most complex, so would typically be more.

Many companies already have well established and documented business plans, objectives and targets. They may also have well established and documented processes and practises that describe how their work works.

Other companies may already be registered to health and safety focused schemes like SSIP, Exor, Achilles, CHAS, Construction Line or something similar.

If existing procedures are well established and codified, they would obviously not need to be reinvented, so this would normally produce any implementation cost.

Most, but not all, standards these days are organised around something called Annex SL. This means the structure of the standard is very similar, but the operational emphasis would be different depending on the focus of the standard.

Therefore, the more standards being worked towards, the easier and simpler much of the integration would become, as all the common elements would only need to be done once.

Obviously, there would be a difference in implementing any ISO standard in a company where the existing processes and practises were both slick and consistent, as opposed to a different company where existing processes and practises were clunky and inconsistent.

The better, quicker and slicker the processes are in an organisation, the quicker and easier ISO implementation is likely to be.

The degree of risk is a key criterion for determining how long implementation might take and how much work is required.

Just imagine the difference between undertaking an ISO implementation for a nuclear power station or chemical refinery against, let’s say, an accountant’s office or marketing agency. They each have significantly different risk profiles and that would impact the degree of control required and the levels of documentation.

Imagine you had two different companies both of 20 people. The first had 20 people all doing 20 fundamentally different things.  The second had 2 or 3 people doing different things, but the remaining 17 or 18 people all doing the same thing.

In the first example, you’d have a lot more processes that need to be defined and documented, so the process is likely to take longer and cost more.

The same logic applies to different offices – is each office doing different things or are they doing the same thing?

One way to think about ISO implementation is that you are guardians of how your work works and Statius would be guardians of the relevant standard requirements. As a result, there are two typical implementation approaches taken, both of which have upsides and downsides. Each approach also impacts the cost and likely duration of your ISO project.

The two approaches are:

• Hands on – Where our Statius consultants would work with your people, discussing with them the activities they undertake, take information away and write-up your processes and practices for you to approve;
• Facilitative – Where we would teach your people how to write the processes and we would then review and check them to ensure they are likely to pass muster and have met all of the ISO requirements.

Most people we find prefer the hands on approach – staff already have a day job to do, and whilst it’s slightly more expensive, the deadline is less likely to slip.