The ISO 9001 standard details requirements for quality management systems and the aim of this standard is to help organisations meet internal quality standards as well as the requirements of customers and trading partners. This standard could be considered as the business management standard since it effectively covers how your business is organised and run.
The current version of the standard is ISO 9001:2026, published on 16 September 2026, which replaced ISO 9001:2015. We certify to both editions, so if you hold a 2015 certificate you can move to 2026 at your next audit or stay on 2015 for as long as it suits you. What changed is covered in ISO 9001:2026: What Has Changed.
The standard requires a clearly defined organisational structure with roles and responsibilities to be clearly defined with the involvement and commitment from top management. Other requirements of this standard are that documented information is controlled and managed effectively that other key resources such as staff and equipment are effectively managed and that there are clear systems in place for management of other relevant operational processes. Effective systems for ongoing monitoring, checking, dealing with problems and making improvements should also be in place. The standard places less emphasis on specific documented procedures and there is no requirement to have a Quality Manual, with the focus on taking a risk-based approach and having effective management systems in place to identify and address risks and opportunities.
Meeting the requirements of this standard
There are various clauses in this standard where there is a requirement to have and retain documented information so even the best run and organised company will still need to review the requirements and make sure they have documented evidence for various things like Management Review, Internal Audits and a Quality Policy.
If you want hands-on help preparing your management system we can introduce you to a consultant from our network of approved ISO consultants. If you would rather set the system up in house, the alphaZ ISO 9001 toolkit gives you the policies, procedures and registers to build it from, and access to the alphaZ documents is included free when you certify with us.
If you would like further information about this standard, the ISO 9001 section of the isomanaged.com knowledge base goes through the standard clause by clause in plain language, setting out what each requirement means in practice and what you need to have in place.
ISO 9001 Certification process
We offer a simple, smart, certification process to provide independent confirmation that your organisation meets the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard and once an audit has been completed with a satisfactory outcome we issue an ISO 9001 registration certificate and authorise the organisation to display our 'ISO 9001 Registered' logo.
Further details on our certification service are available on the ISO Certification page.
Get an ISO 9001 certification quote
ISO 9001 certification with isoassured starts at £750 plus VAT for a single standard. Cost is based on the number of audit days required, not on your turnover or how many people you employ, and there is no long-term contract. Full prices are on our certification costs page.
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