"We are the first market research company in South Africa to achieve this prestigious status for the entire management system of all the company's activities," said Managing Director, Ken McArthur, in Johannesburg today. "All our processes are covered by the certificate - for every division, every service, every product and every location. No other market research operation in South Africa has yet achieved this total coverage. And given that ACNielsen is the largest and most diverse market research operation in the country, we feel this is a spectacular achievement."
This achievement is also notable for the involvement of the Services SETA (Sector Education & Training Authority). Explains Ross Pillay, its Chamber Manager: "We were looking for a leading company in the services sector to show the way for other such companies. We had already noted ACNielsen's commitment to Work Skills Training and when we discovered they were about to commence the introduction of a Total Quality Management (TQM) system with a view to gaining ISO certification, the idea of partnering was born. In return for funding support from us, ACNielsen agreed to be a test-bed for our TQM consultants and to feed back into the SETA the lessons learned from their project."
Although several ACNielsen operations around the globe have already attained ISO 9001 certification, South Africa is one of the first to be certified on the 2000 version of the standard. Compared to the earlier (1994) version the current edition imposes more stringent requirements. Its emphasis is on the management of processes and a continual drive for quality improvement, rather than simply on adherence to documented procedures. South Africa's achievement is all the more noteworthy because it operates one of the ACNielsen group's more diverse and complex operations.
This is echoed by Bob Bruneau, managing Director of Enteq Systems International, who acted as ACNielsen's TQM consultants throughout the project. "It was not until we sat down to unpick the various services offered by ACNielsen that it became clear just what a complex operation they run in their Ormonde headquarters," says Bruneau. "I was also impressed by the excellence of the operating procedures they already had in place, thanks to their long-standing commitment to quality. The main challenge was to draw all these practices together into a cohesive whole, and to document them systematically."
Final auditing and the issuing of ACNielsen South Africa's ISO 9001:2000 certificate were handled by Dekra-ITS. Based in Germany, Dekra-ITS is the world's largest inspection & testing service and an international quality management system accreditation body. Its auditors were extremely impressed with the overall standard of ACNielsen South Africa's process management - so much so that they plan to recommend the local company for the International Dekra Quality Award for Excellence.
"TQM is as much a philosophy of operation as a set of procedures," says McArthur. "Putting TQM principles in place entitles us to initial ISO certification, but that is only a beginning. Adhering to TQM principles means not just maintaining quality, but constantly searching for ways to improve it and then embedding those improvements into our daily work procedures. TQM is a uncompromising challenge to us to do a better job, every day."
