Rabby
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Due to legal requirements I need insurance, I got a bunch of forms from potential insurers. One of them asks if I follow the ISO 9000, which for them is probably a good thing: "follow standards, avoid risks".
Similar to that there are not few standards and conventions, the lean x, the minimum viable y canvas, the 5 steps you need to start your own business, the 10 commandments,...
Even knowing the standards, to then decide whether to follow them or not, has a cost in time. Again:
- On the one hand, I understand that in some cases failing at one of those checkpoints may directly imply or cause the failure of the business, and for a good reason. If you get out of the road, you may find your Viper hugging a tree.
- On the other hand, especially in the case of ISO standards, I have the feeling that it may be inefficient bureaucracy and lead to do like most businesses, i.e. fail. If you drive in a crowded lane, you may find a traffic jam and speed may be low, even zero.
Which is funny for a number of reasons, e.g. it leads to an infinite regression, i.e. it is solved with a fixed point. IMHO.
- On the one hand, if you try to learn everything under the Sun, you will die before you start driving.
- On the other hand, driving without some basic notions and safety may get you killed.
No point (IMHO) in discussing further the second dilemma. What do you think about the first one?
They could be asking in order to invoke a discount, or to gather more information. Answering "yes" might actually trigger a deeper underwriting review, because uh-oh, who are you welding those turbine rotors for that they require you to be ISO certified? But most insurance policies would not require something specific like ISO 9001, say, unless there was a good reason. It's just a question on the application.
Standards like this are especially important in some industries. For example, ISO 9001 (9000 is a family of related standards) is supposed to indicate that you have basic "quality management" in place to ensure consistent business processes. If variations in your process could affect your product, and that in turn could break other people's products, or give people botulism, or cause car accidents, then ISO 9001 and other standards would be worth looking into.
If you can't find any benefit to seeking a certification for the business right now, you can still build relevant controls as your business develops.