ISO 9000:2000 quality management standard: experience in the state of Qatar

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the experience of different organisations in the state of Qatar upon adopting the ISO 9000:2000 quality management standard. It is required to report the available motives, achieved benefits, difficulties encountered and success factors from adopting the standard among certified organisations, and obstacles from its adoption among non-certified organisations. The data collected for the research is from 47 certified organisations utilising a closed ended survey questionnaire. Among the most significant findings is the overall positive notion that the companies in the state of Qatar believe in the benefits and importance of adopting the ISO 9000:2000 standard. Most of these companies are convinced to adopt the standard as a result of its importance to improve process performance/product quality rather than pressure from external customers. In addition, it is proven through the context of this paper that utilising foreign consultants during the certification process to aid companies' staff help to resolve the main difficulty with the certification process that is the cultural change. Last but not the least, lack of time and lack of human resources were considered by the non-certified companies as the main obstacles for getting certified.