Middle East certification to double within five years

DNV further forecasts that the region, will double the current global annual growth rate of 10 per cent. Their strategy will focus on tailor-made processes and a dedicated management interface.

Eivind Grostad, Senior Vice President & Regional Manager, DNV Middle East & India, commented,

"Many organisations throughout the region are now experiencing the inevitable demands of globalisation. In order to meet this challenge, many will now have to install and adhere to quality management systems to compete more effectively on the international stage. We estimate that the growth in risk based certification in the region will double that of more mature markets."

Through their exclusive approach to project and delivery management, DNV focuses on planning, process, delivery and project management, both horizontally and vertically. This exclusive approach allows organisations to benchmark their business objectives, processes and best practices within their local and global structure.

With a strategic and dedicated management interface, DNV define, develop and allocate exclusive resources in order to enable and to facilitate the orchestration of action. This ensures that the aims and expectations of major organisations are clarified, understood and communicated within DNV, thus enabling a consistent approach to all aspects of the assessment and certification process through a defined point of contact, responsibility and authority.

"Certification changes an organisation's approach from retroactive quality testing to a preventative way of thinking. Trust cannot be bought, it has to be built and even the most successful brands continuously endeavour to improve their quality systems," added Grostad.

One of DNV's international partners is luxury Italian car manufacturer Ferrari, which is the epitome of quality and performance. Ferrari started to work towards quality management system certification in 1994 to encourage innovation and improve both quality processes and performance. They were finally certified by DNV to ISO 9000 in 1996.

Ferrari's Vice Managing Director, Amedeo Felisa, stated, "The strategic goal defined in 1996 of implementing a quality system in order to consolidate and improve the production process has been achieved over the past ten years. Now we need to further improve our design and development process system which was added to the certification in 2003."

DNV's regional customer portfolio encompasses a wide range of industries and a variety of customers. They have been actively involved in integrated certification for companies in the petrochemical, process, manufacturing, construction, trading, health, ICT/Telecom and leisure industries. To date, DNV has certified, management system certifications for more than 60,000 companies worldwide including a large and growing number of companies throughout the Middle East.