The benefits of global auditing 

Today’s multi-national organisations are increasingly recognising the advantages of using the auditing and certification services of companies with a global capability.

According to SAI Global’s General Manager Certification, Mr Alex Ezrakhovich, the trend toward use of certification and audit providers that can offer a global service reflects large organisations’ increasing need to have confidence in the consistency of their operations – no matter where they occur.

“Use of either a single, or fewer, providers world-wide increases the consistency of application of services across the globe,” said Mr Ezrakhovich

“It also offers the advantage of cost savings and gives different divisions of global organisations the opportunity to benchmark against each other. In this way, they can take advantage of the fact that they have common goals and a common system that is assessed in a uniform manner,” he said.

“The economies of scale that flow from this approach can be significant, while the pooling of common experience can enable a greater capacity for continuous improvement and often, speedier implementation.”

Mr Ezrakhovich also identifies another reason for large companies favouring use of fewer suppliers.

“In global relationships you are looking at a closer business partnership between the client and certification body concerned,” he said. “Based on its wider experience, the certification organisation is likely to have a deeper knowledge of the client business and to be able to add more value by virtue of this. There is also the issue of resources to consider: a global organisation can offer access to further products and services, whether they be certification-related, a specialised training and education capability or further business improvement options.”

Food safety in India One organisation that can attest to the value of using a global provider is Indian food giant, Radhakrishna Foodland Pty Ltd, a major distribution agent for local and western food outlets, including McDonald’s. When the company’s energetic and visionary CEO, Raju Sheté, decided that the next step in the growth of his highly successful company was to set a whole new benchmark for improved food safety management in the local industry, with a particular focus on supply chain management, he lost no time in seeking the assistance of SAI Global’s Indian operations. "We were able to offer some key advantages over the competition," said Mr Colin Stuart, Program Manager Food Safety with SAI Global. "For a start, we had a local presence which meant there was no need for familiarisation with the local players and market. Second and I think crucially, we were able to offer experience and expertise in this precise area which we had already been trialled to some extent in Thailand." Radhakrishna Foodland is planning to gain HACCP certification and, as part of its quest to achieve best practice, will next be pursuing certification to ISO 9001:2000. However, it is in the critical area of supply chain management: ensuring the integrity of the wide variety of fresh produce it receives, that has been the focus of the work with SAI Global. Mr Stuart explains, the model that has been developed with Radhakrishna Foodland will now be replicated across five or six sister sites throughout India, significantly improving the standard of their products and raising the bar for the industry as a whole. And the commitment to improvement does not stop within the bounds of the company itself: plans to set up a training school for the industry at large are now in development. "There is a great ambition to improve the quality of food handling throughout the whole chain and across the whole industry; to reduce waste, leading to self sufficiency and ultimately to gain entry to export markets," said Mr Stuart.

"Radhakrishna has the demonstrated commitment and capability to achieve this for itself over the long term and offers a fine role model for its colleagues. "Equally, other SAI Global clients in similar markets can look forward to benefiting from our experience here."

Environmental management in Russia

Global experience and widespread international contacts have also led to the environmental certification by SAI Global of the oldest water authority in Russia, GUP Vodocanal, St Petersburg.

In this case, SAI Global’s extensive experience certifying major water plants here in Australia, coupled with relationships established with local Russian auditors, gave rise to what has become one of SAI Global’s farthest flung outposts and an outstanding certification achievement.

“Vodocanal employs some 7000 people and has infrastructure covering more than a thousand square kilometres,” said Ms Sabrina Kerber, SAI Global’s assistant program manager, Environment, who headed up the massive certification project.

Establishing an SAI Global presence in St Petersburg has involved extensive on-the-ground input by experienced campaigners such as Sabrina Kerber, who has been closely involved in training and education of local auditors to ensure their local knowledge is augmented by compliance and consistency with SAI’s other worldwide operations.

“Our Russian auditors say they now have a more profound understanding of the ISO 14001 environmental Standard, specifically its business enhancement focus rather than the more limited compliance focus that they had been used to previously.”

The groundwork for the speed and success of the Russian experience was, according to Ms Kerber, laid in India. “We had grown our environmental business and gone through the process of identifying and training new auditors in new regions and this stood us in good stead in Russia.”

As for the future, Ms Kerber cites SAI Global’s growing capability in environmental certification in Indonesia and the recent environmental certification of US company, Recycle America in Phoenix, Arizona, as the shape of things to come.

“We are also looking at more environmental opportunities in forestry and petroleum in Russia, and we already have a number of clients seeking quality management system certification. It’s a very exciting time.”