You may be certified in your field of expertise, but is your company?
Today’s post is by Heather Powell, Project Manager at SafeSourcing Inc.
You may be certified in your field of expertise, but is your company?
According to Wikipedia:
There are three general types of certification. Listed in order of development level and portability, they are: corporate (internal), product-specific, and profession-wide.
Corporate, or “internal” certifications, are made by a corporation or low-stakes organization for internal purposes. For example, a corporation might require a one-day training course for all sales personnel, after which they receive a certificate. While this certificate has limited portability – to other corporations, for example – it is the most simple to develop.
Product-specific certifications are more involved, and are intended to be referenced to a product across all applications. This approach is very prevalent in the information technology (IT) industry, where personnel are certified on a version of software or hardware. This type of certification is portable across locations (for example, different corporations that use that software), but not across other products. Another example could be the certifications issued for shipping personnel, which are under international standards even for the recognition of the certification body, under an International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The most general type of certification is profession-wide. Certification in the medical profession is often offered by particular specialties. In order to apply professional standards, increase the level of practice, and protect the public, a professional organization might establish a certification. This is intended to be portable to all places a certified professional might work. Of course, this generalization increases the cost of such a program; the process to establish a legally defensible assessment of an entire profession is very extensive. An example of this is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), which would not be certified for just one corporation or one piece of accountancy software but for general work in the profession.
Clearly to have a personal certification benefits you as an individual in multiple ways, as a standardization that you understand your field of expertise and this can create a bigger salary.
Now, is your company certified? The same benefits of certification to you as individual are excellent benefits to your company! These certifications show your company knows its business inside and out, is organized to a set industry standard, and by being certified shows you took the extra steps to the best in your field- whereas your competition may not be.
Companies looking to hire a new service look for certifications. They may look for the certifications before looking any further into your business, its practices, and even pricing models!
At SafeSourcing, Inc. our databases of suppliers are certified in their fields of expertise and when we source new suppliers for you our customer, the first thing we look for are certified companies who can achieve all that our customer would want in a company. We take the extra care and steps to ensure you are getting the best of the best when sourcing new business, products, or services.
If you’d like more information on the SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database of over 427,000 cleansed global sources of supply, on how SafeSourcing can help you with your eProcurement needs, or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services account manager.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
