MCSL receives ISO 9001:2008

Merchant Credit of Sri Lanka Limited (MCSL) upgraded its ISO certification in September 2010 to the ISO 9001:2008 latest version. In 2011, Leonard Perera took over as the ISO QMS Management Representative and initiated the Business Process Reengineering (BPR) exercise steering MCSL towards competitiveness. Here are the excerpts of the interview given by Actg. Chief Executive Officer, Leonard Perera.

Q:. What was your objective after re-certification of ISO 9001:2008 QMS?

A:My first objective was to get the organisations ISO9001:2008 QMS customised to our finance business. We know that ISO 9001 is a Quality standard applicable for organisations for businesses engaged in manufacturing to financial service organisations. However, we wanted a unique Quality Management System (QMS) which meets the requirements of MCSL.

Furthermore, we wanted to re-engineer our current business process mainly the leasing and hire purchase customer delivery mechanism to maximise speed - a key attribute of our quality endeavour.

Kaisha Kaisen Consultancies, ISO Consultants and SGS Lanka, Quality Auditors progressively supported us a lot in developing our QMS to this level.

Q: How do you deal with unnecessary paperwork related to managing the certification?

A:We initiated the process of BPR)mainly focussing on Leasing and Hire-purchase. We identified all non-value adding activities, mainly unnecessary documentation in credit appraisal, approval, in taking securities and finally disbursement of funds to customers/suppliers. Non-value adding activities and documentation were completely or partially eliminated while some were amalgamated to meet the speed of delivery without compromising the organisational safety and control requirements.

This was a lengthy exercise involving new processes, Monitoring of Lead Times of Services, Comparison of past services data and activities and redesigning the entire documentation process with staff participation, teamwork and ensuring top management commitment.

Q: How did you increase the awareness of Quality in the organisation?

A:We launched the ISO re-certification process with a training involving all staff members of MCSL who were trained on basic ISO 9001 principles by ISO consultants. All new recruits were trained in ISO 9001 standards and existing staff is monitored on a continuous basis to maintain the quality standard. Monthly management review meetings are held to assess progress and maintenance of the ISO standard with divisional heads and staff.

Communicating the progress of QMS to the staff asf 'Customer Relationship', 'Learning and Growth' of Human Resources and 'Business Processes' in addition to 'Financial' aspect was powered by the introduction of the 'Balanced Score Card' concept to MCSL. It is linked to an internal e-magazine enhancing maximum outreach and awareness to the staff.

Q:. What are the benefits from ISO 9001?

I personally believe that ISO 9001 QMS Certification will give a quality framework to any financial organisation for continual improvement that will ensure real sustainability and financial stability to the business. However, the ISO 9001 Framework should be fine-tuned and customised to the finance company specific requirements to achieve better performance and end results.