The effectiveness of the ISO 9001 quality management system in service companies

The purpose of the article is to assess ISO 9001 effectiveness (defined as the achievement of the standard's objectives) in service companies. Using a structured questionnaire, a research study was carried out in 100 ISO 9001:2008 certified Greek service companies. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are applied to extract the latent factors of the indicators of ISO 9001 objectives. Descriptive statistics are used to assess the level of ISO 9001 objectives (ISO 9001 effectiveness) achieved by the sample companies. The findings of the study reveal the significant level of ISO 9001 effectiveness achieved by the service companies operating in a business environment where an economic downturn dominates. This means that the sample service companies focus highly on customer satisfaction, prevention of nonconformities and continuous improvement. However, there is still room for further improvement in the level of achievement of the ISO 9001 objectives (ISO 9001 effectiveness) in the service companies.