DB has found that having independently verified management systems in place has bolstered client confidence in works being completed right first time. Long term benefits are already obvious and include greater client satisfaction, more projects for the organisation and a happy workforce that are secure in the knowledge that the company strives always to be better, for all stakeholders. “The point that I don’t think can be stressed too strongly is the worth of having assessors who intimately know the industry you work in,” states Bowie.“BSI evidently understands how our business works and can therefore see the benefit that is to be derived from the standards for us. By managing our business more effectively we have significantly improved our market access at both subcontractor level and more importantly principal contractor and been able to maintain a challenging annual growth target of 34%. This is particularly impressive in light of the current economic climate. Certification gives us a clear competitive advantage,” he continues. “We have reduced costs by approximately 5-10% and by striving for continuous improvements we have been able to innovate and use new technology such as our Hand-epix system. This investment allows us to work in a unique way in terms of logging and recording information of works and communication channels with clients. We believe we are the only private SME in the area to be operating this system.” “Implementing management systems has allowed us to better document the processes and procedures we already had in place but that isn’t enough,” concludes Bowie. “If you achieve all your targets in 12 months then they were either wrong or not progressive enough. In my mind it is important for a company to always be nearly there and never quite there – this is the philosophy of continual improvement in my eyes.”