The Quality Hub Podcast

[Xavier] (0:07 – 0:42)

Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening to the Quality Hub and chatting with ISO Experts. I’m your host, Xavier Francis, and today I’m here with Anne Siebert, Product Manager, and Brian Reich, Manager of Software Development, both from here at Core Business Solutions. I am glad you both can join us.

Thanks, X. Thanks for having us. Absolutely.

We’re so glad to have you both with us again. On this week’s podcast, we’re going to be discussing using software for ISO compliance. We’re going to get into a little bit of detail about our system.

But before we begin, let’s hear a little bit from our guests, Anne and Brian. Anne, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[Anne] (0:43 – 1:02)

Sure. I am Anne Siebert. I’ve been with Core Business Solutions for almost eight years at this point, most of my time with the software development team. So I understand how the customer uses the software and kind of the hiccups that they run into, so that way we can make the software better.

[Xavier] (1:03 – 1:04)
That’s awesome. And Brian, what about you?

[Brian] (1:05 – 1:20)
Hi. I’m Brian Reich. I’m the Manager of Software Development.
I’ve been here for a little over five years now. My job here at the company is basically to guide the technical direction of the software and oversee the software team.

[Xavier] (1:20 – 1:27)
Well, this is awesome. Let’s get started with Anne. And what are some of the advantages of using software for compliance management?

[Anne] (1:28 – 1:39)
Software can simplify compliance management by providing that centralized system to help reduce the need for manual processes.

[Xavier] (1:39 – 1:41)
Okay. So it gets you out of paper.

[Anne] (1:41 – 1:56)
Right. So it ensures that compliance activities are trackable and there are notifications for tasks that need to be completed. There’s also an audit trail for all of the actions that have been completed as well.

[Xavier] (1:56 – 1:56)
Okay.

[Anne] (1:56 – 2:11)
There’s also automation, which helps organizations stay compliant. So they don’t have to rely on that paper or the spreadsheet, which can be prone to human error.

[Xavier] (2:11 – 2:17)
Also, if you’re going to put it in a spreadsheet, you might have to do all of the calculations and figure all that kind of stuff out.

[Anne] (2:17 – 2:25)
Yeah. There’s a lot of manual work and making sure the right people have access to it, who is editing at certain times, that sort of thing.

[Xavier] (2:26 – 2:27)
Anything else?

[Anne] (2:28 – 3:23)
Having software helps also distribute ownership and accountability to a team rather than just one person. So that way the ISO certification and compliance can be managed by everyone and not just one person in that company. If you’re a company, you’re part of a larger organization, why wouldn’t you have a team that knows the process, owns the process, does all of that work, and keeps it up to date?

So having software like Core Compliance Platform is like having an accountant do your taxes or having a lawyer do any legal issue or help you with any legal issues. You want the experts who know the ISO standards to kind of help build that software. So that way you stay in compliance and stay certified.

[Brian] (3:23 – 3:24)
Okay.

[Xavier] (3:24 – 3:25)
Do you have a take on this, Brian?

[Brian] (3:26 – 5:01)
Yeah. So before I came to Core, I was a freelance web developer. And I did what a lot of small business owners do, I try to DIY all of the business of doing business stuff that goes into being self-employed or having your own business, right?

So I was duct-taping together Excel sheets and stuff to do my accounting like lots of people do, finding my ways of doing all of these business processes, right? Well, it doesn’t take that long until you realize you’re spending so much time just doing the business of doing business and not putting that time into building and improving your products and services, right? So after I was in business for a little while, of course, I dropped the duct tape spreadsheets and I got a subscription to QuickBooks online.

And then not too long after that, I got accountants to help me do that work, which allowed me to stay focused on doing the things that serve my customers and frankly made me money too. So it was penny-wise pound foolish to do it the other way, right? So for me, if I were still in business for myself and I had to be compliant with a standard like ISO 9001, it would be a no-brainer to use software like Core Compliance Platform.

It would help streamline my business, keep me efficient doing the things that serve my customers, and make me money. And it would give me a great platform to bring in those experts, just like I hired accountants to help me with my accounting. Core Business Solutions provides the expertise and compliance to bring along into the Core Compliance Platform.

[Xavier] (5:01 – 5:53)
Yep, absolutely. And that makes a lot of sense. Great analogy there.

I know in the past, earlier this year, we met with Scott and Ann and talked about why Core Compliance was developed specifically for ISO standards and what some of those parts are within the software that we utilize to make compliance easier for customers. And software that you’re going to use, even if it’s not Core Compliance Platform, you know, it’s going to take some of these hard parts out of it. The duct taping, as you put it, of spreadsheets and things together.

But we’re one of the few, if not only, that developed our software for compliance. With that in mind, I know that we have some parts to our software. One is called autoforms.

Brian, can you explain the role of autoforms and web autoforms in our software, Core?

[Brian] (5:54 – 6:53)
So at a very high level, autoforms are just sub-applications within the Core Compliance Platform. And they provide data entry and business automation tools. They mostly provide solutions to compliance problems.

They help you track data that the auditor is going to be asking about and help ensure that that data is healthy when your audit comes around. So autoforms are an internal tool. Folks within your organization will log into Core.

They will fill out autoforms. They’ll receive notifications when events are occurring in autoforms that they have to take action on. And web autoforms solve the other side of that problem.

So sometimes there’s data that you need to collect from somebody outside your organization. And web autoforms provide the solution to that. They provide a public URL that you can send people to submit data, which can then be acted on by your folks using the internal version of the form.

[Xavier] (6:54 – 6:55)
Anne, do you have anything on that?

[Anne] (6:55 – 7:24)
Yeah, that’s, I mean, the example there is customer satisfaction, where you want to get a survey done by your customer, but still gather that information. So the way to do that is through the web autoform. Send the web autoform to your customer.

So that way they can fill out that survey. And then that data is then imported into Core. So you don’t have to do any of that manual entry as long as they fill out the form.

[Xavier] (7:24 – 7:33)
And there are other parts of the standard that are required, like for suppliers, they need to provide some information, other things like that, where these web autoforms can be really useful, right?

[Anne] (7:33 – 8:02)
Yep, that’s right. So the supplier is the other side of it, where you need suppliers to run your business. And there has to be a process in order to vet that supplier.