Introduction to ISO

The International Organization for Standardization, widely known as ISO, is an international standard setting and supervising organization. It is the largest standards setting organization in the world. It was founded in 1947. Its headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a non-governmental and independent organization. The organization has a very great reputation across the globe and there are several instances where its standards are made mandatory by governments of various countries. In various cases, ISO standards, such as ISO 9001 quality management system, have become market requirements. However, as a non-governmental organization, ISO has no legal authority to enforce the implementation of its standards. English, French and Russian are its official languages and www.iso.org is its official website.
Every year, ISO also publishes several Technical Reports, Technical Specifications and Technical Guides. ISO has its presence in 158 countries out of 203 total counties in the world. ISO sets standards for several sectors ranging from agriculture, construction and mechanical engineering to transportation, IT and Management.
Standards measure various characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, and efficiency. Whether a rich nation or developing nation, each country has an equal say to influence the direction of ISO's standards.
Benefits of ISO standards:
Enhances Credibility among clients: ISO certification enhances the credibility of a company. Most of the clients prefer to outsource their work to such companies, which are certified by well reputed certification companies like ISO.
Enhances Market credibility: Certain ISO Standards, such as ISO 9001 quality management systems, have become market requirements. It may become difficult to survive in the market without such certifications.
Legislature compulsions: Though ISO is a non-government organization, some countries have made it mandatory for companies to follow certain ISO Standards for business houses. In such countries, it will become illegal if any business house violates any legalized ISO standard.
Enables to follow the state of the art methods: ISO conducts a periodic review of its standards, at least once in every five years and decides whether the standards should be followed, updated, replaced and withdrawn. Thus, ISO standards enable the business houses to follow the state of the art methods.


Global Acceptance: ISO standards are recognized across the globe and the methods can be followed anywhere in the world. They promote a kind of uniformity among the work structures of various companies across the globe. ISO Standards enable us to examine ourselves whether we are working the same way as our counterparts in other countries.