SOCAPS and certifications – ISO 9001 

ISO certifications provide a structural framework for companies in terms of management and governance. They define a set of certified and evaluated practices and methods, leaving the company complete freedom regarding the means, tools and operating methods used. 

Each company will therefore have to comply with the “PCDA”: Plan Do Check Act (Plan, Do, Check, Act). When an anomaly or an improvement is identified during the verification phase, we act on the existing and start the PCDA process again, thus creating continuous improvement and a virtuous circle for the company. 

SOCAPS and the ISO 9001 certification 

In 2016, SOCAPS created the “Safety & Security” department to organize activities for the protection and prevention of occupational risks. 

One of Richard Woolf’s first assignments, as the new Health, Safety and Security Officer, was to obtain the ISO 9001 certification for SOCAPS support functions. This meant putting in place structured, efficient and international processes to deliver the same quality standards all over the world within our agencies. In a few words: Simplify and clarify processes while maintaining agility, flexibility and adaptability. 

In 2018, SOCAPS GROUP obtained the ISO 9001 certification covering the global strategy, recruitment, finance, marketing, logistics, administrative service and sales departments. This ISO 9001 certification confirms that SOCAPS GROUP’s quality management system corresponds to international standards. 

The first certification is the most difficult to obtain since the company does not yet have experience in the normative world. Thus, to improve its internal processes and obtain the certification, SOCAPS has implemented several actions. 

Generalized actions implemented:  

• Global meetings:

To disseminate the strategy and ensure that it is understood by all employees, general meetings have been set up, at least twice a year.  

These meetings allow all employees to obtain the same information regardless of their place of work (France, United States, Singapore, South Africa and the Netherlands), to share ideas and express their needs and possible misunderstandings. 

• Meetings by department: 

Each department is organized independently to provide management with at least a quarterly activity report. The purpose of these meetings is to analyze the progress of the projects, to put in place corrective actions, if necessary, in order to achieve the set objectives. 

• Customer and member satisfaction reviews:

Each year, during the same period, SOCAPS gives the floor to its customers and members to assess the quality of its services by sending a questionnaire dealing in particular with the following subjects: the overall assessment of our services over the previous year, the quality of our administrative and commercial departments, the recommendation of SOCAPS to their entourage, comments to share ideas and express themselves and a callback request if necessary. 

• Continuous improvement questionnaire:

SOCAPS also gives a voice to its employees during an annual continuous improvement questionnaire, taking into account various themes such as those of assigned missions, well-being at work and the company’s CSR policy. 

• Management of non-conformities:

 A non-compliance procedure has been put in place for all our interventions. It can concern customers or technicians and helps to deal with any deviations from the quality management system, the analysis of the causes and the proposal of corrective and preventive actions. 

The process: 

• Reporting of the non-conformity (by the technician, the customer, the sales representative, etc.) 
• Formalization of the non-conformity on a dedicated form (analysis of the problem, probable nature, analysis of the most probable cause, proposal for immediate corrective action and preventive action to prevent the problem from occurring again). 
• Our processing time targets:
  • Simple non-conformity: 30 days 
  • Complex non-conformity: 90 days 

• SMQ Internal Audit: 

Once a year, the month preceding the renewal or certification audit, SOCAPS calls on an external body to carry out an internal audit.  

For 2 days, this organism checks compliance and quality management against the ISO 9001 standard and the system set up internally. 

Targeted actions: 

• For the sales department: 

The establishment of a digital platform for the management of the activity. This platform will automate actions, respond more quickly to the assistance needs of our customers, identify the availability of our members most in line with their needs, provide access to information in real time to our teams all over the world and thus reduce errors. 

• For the marketing department:

The service has also developed a project management system listing all projects in a database. This database makes it possible to monitor the progress of projects, action plans and the various stages.  

A loyalty program for our members (Talent Management Program) has been created to better support each member within SOCAPS. This program allows us to analyze our ability to meet member expectations, and to evaluate and improve our services. To complete this program, the deployment of an e-learning platform will be scheduled before the end of this year 

• The integration process:

As soon as they join, all new members are followed in their integration process in order to measure their satisfaction. The idea being to check that their first assignment was in line with their expectations and to ensure that they were well supported by our teams. 

The certification of SOCAPS GROUP certification has recently been renewed. We have chosen to widen the scope of certification to include all the technical activities of our members and contractors all over the world, all without the slightest non-conformity identified by the audit team!

Why be certified? 

As we have already mentioned, the main challenge of certification for a company is the pursuit of continuous improvement. ISO certification is above all a flexible framework that allows a continuous improvement benchmark for the company to be obtained by focusing on the analysis of its management. 

The second issue linked to certification is a commercial issue. Certifications are a guarantee of operational excellence and therefore of quality and trust for customers. They make it possible to promote companies by giving them international recognition. An ISO certified company will therefore have a competitive advantage in the market over non-certified companies. 

Regarding small structures lacking visibility (compared to large groups), these certifications provide legitimacy in the eyes of their clients. Note also that some companies only work with partners or service providers with one, or even more, specific certifications. Not having these certifications can therefore, in some cases, close doors to opportunities. 

It is important to note that the financial and human costs for obtaining certification are significant, so make sure you invest in it and deploy the necessary means to achieve certification.

Our upcoming certifications 

To better respond to the societal challenges that are close to our heart, SOCAPS wishes to go further in its approach and invest more in specialized subjects. 

On all our projects, safety and security remain our top priorities. Our environmental commitment complements this approach and it is in this sense that we have launched the ambitious project to be certified: ISO 14001, environmental management system, and ISO 45001, safety and health management system. work before the end of summer 2021!