The ISO standards that are particularly pertinent to modern management practices are the ISO 9000 Quality Management Standards (QMS) and the new ISO 14000 Environmental Management Standards (EMS).

These standards are attempts to aid organizations adopt modern management practices. ISO 9000, e.g., is to help companies become quality-oriented along the lines of Total Quality Management (TQM) whereas the ISO 14000 is to aid companies become 'green and competitive' so to speak. 

But as demonstrated and discussed in my first book, although the intention of these standards is noble they cannot ensure good results for many reasons. The most important is possibly that the vital link to cost management is missing, and that most companies view these standards as trade barriers - something they must comply to - and not as a starting point for creating a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The ISO 14000 standard is in addition also plagued by major problems such as producing results that cannot be compared to anything but themselves. 

Therefore, the ISO standards must be interpreted and implemented with care and preferably linked to other concepts so that certified companies also will increase their SCA.  Examples of how to do this are;

1. The Activity-Based Cost and Environmental Management method integrates and extends modern cost management practices into the field of environmental management in a way that is not described in the ISO 14000 standards, but that complies with the ISO 14000 standard. The benefits are many as shown extensively in my new book.
2. The management process as taught and implemented by Considium Consulting Group AS (where I worked in 1999-2001) in numerous companies the last 15 years is now one of the cornerstones in the new ISO 9004 standard.

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Last modified: May 15, 2008