Measuring the Impact of ISO 9001 on Employee and Customer Related Company Performance

Purpose: According to ISO 9000:2015 “the primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive to exceed customer expectations”, where “a customer can be internal or external to the organization”. Internal customers refer to a company’s employees, while external customers are the buyers of a company’s products and services. Previous research has scrutinised the impact of ISO 9001 on company performance, without clear focus on the performance related to internal and external customers. Methodology/Approach: The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of ISO 9001 on the performance to internal and external customers using a survey that has been responded by 141 companies in the Republic of Serbia. Findings: The results show that quality management system (QMS) certification to ISO 9001 enhances employee- and customer-related company performance, while certification incentives are found to influence this relationship. Research Limitation/Implication: The data are gathered in only one specific country, although there are no reasons to think that the results could depend of the specific analysed region. Originality/Value of paper: The main value of the article is to be one of the first ones to analyse, in any way, the impact of QMS on internal and external customers.