An empirical analysis of ISO 9001:2008 application in Italian services and manufacturing companies

The certification of Quality System is a contractual requirement that is sometimes essential in business relationships. ISO 9001 consolidates governance and represents the basis for the implementation of other management systems, as well as for the adoption of schemes or standards in specialist sectors. Moreover, the scientific literature focused on the benefits and barriers of ISO 9001 application is often in disagreement and strongly differs in dependence of countries and sectors. Based on these considerations, the aim of this paper is to realise a comparative analysis between Services Companies (SeCo) and Manufacturing Companies (MaCo), in order to identify the advantages and disadvantages perceived from ISO 9001:2008 applications. The research was carried out through a questionnaire proposed to 1692 Italian Companies (response rate=15%). The results clearly showed that SeCo and MaCo present few statistical differences in the benefits and limitations derived from ISO 9001:2008 applications; the main perceived benefits were a greater awareness of business opportunities in terms of continuous improvement, and the increase in business results in terms of organisation; increasing complexity of procedures in a company and bureaucratisation is the greatest disadvantage. Finally, the companies' expectations for the new version ISO 9001:2015 were analysed.