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Percall has been certified ISO 9001 Version 2008 since June 2006 for its Multilingual Technical Support on Computer Applications activity. This certification represents both an external symbol and an internal management goal for us in our day-to-day work. Below, Lothar Wiegratz, Percall Business Unit Director, and Olivier Fumey, Percall’s Development Director, talk about quality :
 

Why did Percall choose the ISO 9000 standard ?
Lothar Wiegratz–Technical Support BU Director : Percall is not alone in the Technical Support Trade. In this sector, everybody is boasting the excellence of their service and the competitiveness of their prices. Standing out above the crowd is not an easy thing ! ISO 9000 certification is one way of doing this.


ISO 9000, a marketing tool then ?
LWZ : It’s important to show our current and prospective service requesters that quality is one of our core values. Beyond the symbol however, we are deeply aware that it is within our own environment that we need to seek and aspire to develop the highest level of quality awareness.


How does this approach translate concretely within your company ?
LWZ : Our « Quality » approach is cross-contextual. All the departments at Percall are concerned and involved. But above all, this is expressed in the way we deal with our customers, in the way we work with and for them. It’s a state of mind which resonates in everyone concerned and at all levels of our activity. It’s a daily effort to maintain an open and comprehensive ear, to work together in finding the right solutions, implement them, analyze the results and draw the conclusions which make things move forward.

ISO 9000, Percall’s raw material ?
Olivier Fumey – Percall Development Director (Rabat) : I wouldn’t put it that way. Our “primary raw material” at Percall is our men and women : their skills, experience, diversity, affinities … Our job is to ensure, at all times, that they have everything they need to accomplish their tasks and missions. The ISO 9000 is for us a tool which allows us to move forward while improving our results and the way we do things.


How is the ISO 9000 standard perceived by your staff ? Is it an aid or a bureaucratic stumbling block ?
OFY : ISO is a management system involving a set of rules and requirements to ensure that a company, and in particular a service company like Percall, is aiming at customer satisfaction. It’s true, in the early days, there were a few ISO-phobes … Too much formalization, too much writing, too many action plans, too many expenses, too much loss of time, independence and spontaneity.


So what did you do ?
OFY : Our ground work had already been prepared. From the start, the Percall management put the “Customer” at the heart of its thinking. It was an approach which we all shared already. It was simply a matter of embracing the requirements of the standard. At the beginning, it was a question of communication more than anything else.


Then ?
OFY : We then needed to identify the key processes of our activity, analyze and formally define them, check that they were working correctly, and apply the necessary changes.


The famous Demming Wheel… « Plan-Foresee-Anticipate /Act-Apply/ Measure-Control /Improve-Correct »
OFY : Yes, but here, we are not seeking to reinvent the wheel, but simply to make it turn : by reconsidering, examining and analyzing the results based on reliable, verified data … an on-going challenge.