Raising awareness of the benefits of certification and assurance services
‘ISO 9000: is the real estate sector any different?‘, (Buttle, Jayne 1999), looks specifically as to whether the real estate sector benefits from certification to ISO 9000.
The basis for this research is a far more extensive piece of research (Buttle 1996) which looks at the benefit of ISO 9000 certification across many different sectors of the UK economy. Of the 1220 responses received from this larger survey, 65 responses were from the real estate sector and it is these responses that are examined to ascertain a picture of the real estate sector’s view of ISO 9000 certification.
Two key issues were examined, the motivations for pursuing ISO 9000 certification and the benefits.
The first table shows the reasons for real estate companies pursuing certification, ranked alongside those for all sectors (5 is ‘very important’ and 1 is ‘unimportant’):
|
Motivation for certification |
Mean |
Real estate sector rank |
All sectors rank |
| Likely future customer demand | 4.07 |
1 |
1 |
| Improve service quality | 3.785 |
2 |
4 |
| Increase consistency of operations | 3.770 |
3 |
2 |
| Maintain/improve market share | 3.754 |
4 |
3 |
| Good promotional tool | 3.631 |
5 |
6 |
| Make operations more efficient | 3.554 |
6 |
7 |
| Customer pressure | 3.385 |
7 |
5 |
| Improve product quality | 3.219 |
8 |
8 |
| Proof of total quality management | 2.730 |
9 |
9 |
| Cost reduction | 2.400 |
10 |
10 |
Even with the considerably smaller sample size, there appears to be only a small amount of variation between the real estate sector and all sectors.
Secondly, the perceived benefits of certification, in this case, the % of real estate sector firms who perceived they had realised the benefit of ISO 9000 certification:
|
Benefits of ISO 9000 certification |
% experiencing benefit |
| Better management control |
95 |
| Improving efficiency |
95 |
| Using as a promotional tool |
95 |
| Increasing customer satisfaction |
95 |
| Improving customer service |
95 |
| Improving procedure awareness |
94 |
| Improving staff motivation |
91 |
| Gaining new customers |
91 |
| Procedural problems elimination |
91 |
| Aiding induction of new staff |
88 |
The report’s conclusions are that ‘Analysis of all sectors shows that while companies’ expectations of ISO 9000 are not met in full, they are generally satisfied with the contribution made to their organisation. The experiences of the real estate sector are no different from companies as a whole and reflect those across the entire population’.
Specifically for the real estate sector, benefits are gained in practice management and practice promotion. In practice management this covers better management control improving procedure awareness, improving efficiency, eliminating procedural problems, aiding induction of new staff and improving motivation of all staff. Secondly the promotional benefits of ISO 9000 certification include improved customer service, ISO 9000 as a practical promotional tool, increasing customer satisfaction and gaining new customers.
Manchester Business School (Buttle), University of Staffordshire (Jayne)