Declining Credibility of Management System Certification

Although traditionally certification to ISO standards was always looked upon very respectfully, unfortunately it has in the recent past, lost some of its credibility and that’s due to several reasons. To name a few:

• - Readymade Certification Shops
• - Malpractices by Certification Bodies
• - Misrepresentation and Misuse of Certification/Accreditation Bodies
• - Ignorance/Lack of Seriousness from Customers

In today’s digital and electronic age, access to readymade certification shops is just a click away and what’s more disturbing to note is that the aspiring companies easily fall pray to such short lived certifications papers and somehow end up managing to meet eligibility requirement to offer their services to their prospective customers. Many of these readymade certification shops openly promise to provide certification in few days and at a very low price. To make the matters worst for the credibility of management system certification, many CB’s have been found to adopt malpractices, mostly due to commercial pressures and have been subsequently penalised by their AB’s with suspensions and at times with withdrawals of their accreditations. Further it’s also not unusual these days to find organisations openly misusing and misrepresenting their certifications. Ignorance/lack of seriousness from subscribing Customers only emboldens such organisations to continue with their abuse of certification.

BAI's View: We strongly believe that the problem with credibility of management system certification is not country specific but global in nature and hence the solution also must take global landscape into consideration. BAI through its various services aims to restore credibility and trust on management system certifications.