In ISO 9000, Standard vocabulary - Competitors , interested parties?

[Big Jim]

Keep in mind that it is up to the organization to determine who their interested parties are and what of their requirements are relevant to your quality management system.

If you follow the concept of interested parties too deep into the bunny hole you could end up with every entity in the universe. Use a bit of reasoning and logic to determine who the most pertinent ones are.

Make sure you understand the requirements of element 4.2 and that you are able to explain your position.

For a reasonable potential list of interested parties see ISO 9002:2016, but don't get the impression that this guidance document is trying to tell you that you need to include all of the ones they are suggesting you consider.

 

[tony s]

I agree with Big Jim. There's a reason why the statement in clause 4.2 starts with "Due to their effect or potential effect on the organization’s ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements..."

 

[Kronos147]

...that can include competitors or ......
it mentions competitors as interested party.
How can be an interested party?

Top Management says "they have 51% of the market, and we have 49%, we need to reverse that by 2021!" or "they have better on time delivery, let's meet or beat them by next meeting!"...

 

[Umar Bilal]

The example in 9000 states "partners or society that can include competitors or opposing pressure groups".

It seems to me a competitor might be a partner, if, for example, there is an industry organization that develops and maintains industry standards (e.g., automotive standard). In such a case, fulfilling the needs/expectations may include: participating in good faith in the joint standards development process, advocating for the standard, implementing the standard as expected, budgeting time/money for joint standards development meetings, etc.

Another example might be where competitors in the same industry are members of a trade organization whose purpose is to lobby/promote the industry's product/service for all members of the trade org, yet all these members are competing with each other.

Another might be more antagonist where there needs to be a respect to not get into a price war with a competitor, which ends up damaging both companies. Fulfilling needs/expectations is then maybe about using pricing models based on true costs and market trends (instead of focusing on parasitizing the competitor's customer base). This might also be a survival "don't poke the bear" strategy, where the company is small and the competitor is huge, but they won't squish us if we don't irritate them. This would be similar to the "opposing pressure groups" where fulfilling the needs/expectations is also about behavior in the market and operations (e.g., a lumber company has a replanting program to reforest areas after harvesting, to avoid protests and shutdowns of logging activity).

Thank you so much for satisfactory answer.. I got it your examples.......