#235 PUBLIC's 3-Month Journey towards ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1

An ISO project can typically be completed within 6 – 12 months depending on an organisations size and complexity. Anyone who's been through the process of ISO Implementation knows that there is a lot of work involved in that time span, from coordinating teams, gathering and creating documentation to auditing your processes.

Now imagine doing that for 3 ISO Standards simultaneously within 3 months! Which is exactly what today's guest, PUBLIC, have achieved. While it's not a timeframe we recommend, their efforts deserve to be celebrated, and displays what good project management with dedicated individuals can accomplish.

In this episode, Ian Battersby is joined by Biba Gonzalez, Senior Associate of Business Operations at PUBLIC, to discuss their 3-month dash to implement ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1, and explore the challenges and benefits experienced during the process.

You'll learn

· Who is Biba Gonzalez?

· Who are PUBLIC?

· What was the main driver behind ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1 Implementation?

· What was the biggest gap identified during the Gap Analysis?

· What did Biba learn from the experience of implementing 3 standards at once?

· What are the main benefits of ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1?

· Biba's top tip

Resources

· PUBLIC

· Isologyhub

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – Ian is joined by Biba Gonzalez, Senior Associate of Business Operations at PUBLIC, to learn more about their 3-month whirlwind journey towards ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & ISO 20000-1 implementation.

[02:30] Jumping in at the deep end: Biba was tasked with obtaining certification to 3 ISO Standard on returning from maternity leave in July 2025.

PUBLIC already held ISO 27001 certification, but were looking to achieve ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 before Christmas of 2025.

This was quite the task, especially since Biba had no previous experience with ISO Standards!

[04:15] Who is Biba? Biba is the Senior Associate of Business Operations at PUBLIC. She has been the driving force behind PUBLIC's ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1 implementation.

One fact that not many people might know about her is that she has had a private audience with the pope, by complete accident! Simply a case of wrong queue at the right time while on a family vacation.

[06:50] Who are PUBLIC? PUBLIC are a digital transformation partner. They work within the private sector to help improve public services, by providing procurement services, online safety programmes and other digitally enabled services.

[08:00] What were the main drivers behind achieving ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1?: PUBLIC work with a number of Government departments, and while bidding for various frameworks they noticed a trend in requests for bidding companies to have ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification.

While not always a strict requirement, it was certainly a desirable trait that was preferred of bidding companies.

There's also an increasing number of tenders asking for more environmental requirements, such as carbon emission reporting. What used to be a 'nice to have' is now becoming a requirement, and PUBLIC sought to have these requirements met via the relevant ISO Standards.

[09:40] A tight timescale: When Biba had arrived back from maternity leave in July, PUBLIC has already booked in assessment dates with a Certification Body. This left quite a tight timeline of just 3-months to get all 3 Standards implemented to a level that could pass a Stage 1 Assessment.

They already had an ISO 27001 system in place, but there was still a lot of work to do. A lot had been discussed about the implementation of additional standards in Biba's absence, but no practical steps had been taken aside from booking the audit dates.

She certainly had her work cut out for her as most ISO project typically last between 6 – 12 months!

Due to all her hard work, and some assistance from Blackmores, PUBLIC passed their Stage 1 assessment with flying colours and are in a good place to tackle their Stage 2 Assessment in late November 2025.

[11:40] What was the biggest gap identified during the Gap Analysis? Thankfully PUBLIC didn't have any huge gaps to fill. Due to their previous work with Government departments, they had a lot of the pieces just not together in a cohesive system.

They did identify early on that they wanted a system that worked for them in the long term and were conscious of creating something that fit their way of working. With so many ISO Standards, the upkeep alone would have been overwhelming so they aimed to combine as much as they could into one Business Management System rather than opting to silo each individual Management System.

[13:00] What were the benefits of Implementing ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & ISO 20000-1? Biba states that the implementation of these ISO Standards took their business to the next level.

Coming from a relatively small start-up, there was some of the micro business mentality that remained despite their growth in recent years. ISO Standards helped to keep everyone adhering to the same requirements.

PUBLIC have taken a more hollistic approach to ISO implementation to both make it as simple as possible for everyone to work within, while also driving continual improvement within the business.

Having established processes means that everyone is singing from the same song sheet, and provides traceable processes that can be questioned and amended if and when issues occur.

[16:15] Additional benefits felt from ISO Implementation: There is greater accountability with the Management system in place.

There is also the added benefits of being able to bid and win new business opportunities.

[17:25] Biba's top tip for ISO Implementation: Don't try and implement an ISO Standard (or multiple!) in just 3 months. While PUBLIC managed to do so, it was a lot of hard work squeezed into a very tight timeframe, and Biba wouldn't recommend anyone try to match their level of ambition in this regard.

Secondly she adds, make the Management System work for you and your business. ISO Standards by their nature read to be fairly generic, and that's by design, so that you have the freedom to implement them in a way that makes sense to you. There is no point implementing an obtuse system that no one wants to interact with, the key is to embed it into the way you already work, with a view to use it as a tool to drive continual improvement as the system matures.

[19:00] Looking to the future: Biba is optimistic about the business, as they're looking to grow by 20% next year, supported by all the work done to Implement ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 20000-1.

While they have had to change aspects of how they worked prior, due to being a small business the nature of approvals and ways of working were on a more individual basis, whereas now there is a team-based approach. It's been a learning curve, but ultimately one that will serve them well as they grow over the next few years.

[21:30] Biba's book recommendation: Invisible Women: the Sunday Times number one bestseller exposing the gender bias women face every day by Caroline Criado Perez

[24:05] Biba's favourite quote: "Not my circus, not my monkey" an idiom which Biba's sure a lot of Operations Directors can sympathise with

If you'd like to learn more about PUBLIC, check out their website.

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