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Home Resources Blog July 2020
Meet Our Partners - CBO Associates Ltd

Meet Our Partners - CBO Associates Ltd

06 July 2020
This months Meet Our Partner is consultancy CBO Associates, Clark Boles discusses where it all began and CBO's expertise in a broad range of ISO standards. 

What standards can you help NQA clients with?

  • ISO 9001:2015 [Quality Management]

  • ISO 14001:2015 [Environmental Management]

  • ISO 17020:2012 [Inspection Management]

  • ISO 22301:2019 [Business Continuity]

  • ISO 27001:2013 [Information Security]

  • ISO 13485:2016 [Medical Device Manufacturing]

  • ISO 45001:2018 [Occupational Health and Safety]

  • ISO 50001:2018 [Energy Management]

  • IATF 16949:2016 [Automotive Quality Management]

  • SSIP

About your company

Established in 2012 by Clark Boles, CBO Associates initially specialised in providing Consultancy on Quality, Health & Safety and Environmental Management Systems and Auditing services.

In 2015 the business expanded its services to include both Human Resources and other Management Systems which further complements our existing offering to our growing customer base.

As a result of the extensive experience and success at CBO many of our clients have come through personal recommendations and satisfied existing customers, covering a wide range of industries throughout Scotland.

Why do you like working with NQA? How do you benefit from the relationship? Why did you choose to work in partnership with NQA?

Over the years we’ve worked with several Certification Bodies and it’s always down to the small things that make the biggest difference in any working relationship.
 
Our customers trust us implicitly to deliver the best service and we’re happy to share some of their comments with you regarding NQA: 

  1. Great customer service, friendly, approachable and responsive from your first contact.

  2. We felt NQA’s pragmatic technical experience, resources, capability and reasonable costs were far more attractive compared to other certification bodies.

  3. We were very impressed with their clear, well-thought-out proposal and their ability to understand our needs. It’s a very professional service.

  4. Well experience auditors with a breadth of knowledge on the subject of ISO Standards that add value to our business.

Why work with anyone else when your customers are happy.

Top tip for people looking at certification?

We found it difficult to keep it to one.

  1. Don’t try and change your business to fit the standard. Think about how you do things and how that standard reflects on how you do it, rather than the other way around.

  2. Take the necessary time. All too often organisations are in a hurry to obtain certification and do not spend the time needed to implement the system effectively. 

  3. Keep it simple, user friendly, and ease up on the paperwork with your business.

  4. Engage everybody who will be required to use the system. The better the engagement the better the buy in, and improvement will automatically follow.

What do you find is the most common point of misunderstanding regarding certification or specific standards when visiting clients? What information do you have to clarify most often?

Some of the comments we’ve heard when visiting prospective customers are: 

  • ‘ISO standards are not for a small organisation’

It’s easier than you think... ISO Certification is intended for all fields of business and can be implemented to all organisations regardless of their size, activity or sector.

  • ‘Certification will add no value to our organisation’

Far from the truth. ISO Certification will provide a host of benefits to businesses who adopt an efficient management system. In addition. combining the common elements from all your chosen standards will enable you to better align your management system to your daily business activities, purpose and mission.

  • ‘We’ve been down this ISO road before and it was a painful experience’

An experienced consultant will support you from start to finish. Whether you have operational procedures in place or not, they will design, document, implement and operate a simple management system that meets all the requirements of that chosen ISO standard. They will design the system around your existing business practices wherever possible, and if necessary, help you to identify and resolve issues where you do not conform to that ISO standard.

Anything else you think our readers might like to know/hear?

Our first customer enquiry came over Twitter for ISO 9001 and nearly seven years later they still retain our business services.

For more information please visit us at:

Twitter: @QHSEman1
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cgb06
Website: www.cboassociates.co.uk

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* Disclaimer:

NQA does not provide consultancy in order to remain impartial from management systems implementation.

NQA shall not imply that certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if a consultancy listed on the ACR is used.

ACR Consultants shall not imply that NQA certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if their services are used.

NQA remains impartial from our partners on our Associate Consultant Register and does not endorse one partner over another.

‘Our consultants’ do not work for NQA, they work as independent bodies in partnership with us through our Associate Partner Programme. In accordance with the accreditation standard ISO 17021-1:2015 NQA does not provide consultancy in order to remain impartial from management systems implementation.