Australia has a long way to go to producing the highest quality services and products, according to a global risk management provider.

SAI Global provides standards, assurance and training offerings across more than 130 countries.

David Smith, Principal Advisor in Business Improvement at SAI Global, said detailed audits are designed to uncover any issues in the business that would be a barrier to meeting this goal.

Mr Smith said organisations that used SAI Global audits and certification wanted to deliver the highest quality products and services possible.

“We have highlighted the most frequent audit failures, because we believe Australia still has a long way to go to producing the highest quality services and products.

"Problems associated with quality usually come from organisations failing to set realistic objectives; and not effectively marrying their processes, systems and employee talent cohesively within their organisations to meet those objectives.”

SAI Global’s top 7 businesses failures, as revealed by its audits:

1. Lack of effective strategic planning

Audits by SAI Global seek proof of a business strategy, and proof that the strategy is being reviewed and followed, that the business understands its strengths and weaknesses, and its market and competition.

Mr Smith said audit failures here were more common among small-to-medium businesses.

“We find smaller businesses more commonly have less of a focus on strategy and direction. They are too busy running their business and don’t have the resources to look at the bigger picture. As such, they have less of an understanding of the competitive environment, are less able to compete, and often struggle to identify opportunities and grow.”

2. Mid-level and junior employees are in the dark about the business’s objectives 

SAI Global’s audits look for evidence that senior management has cascaded measurable objectives – and the necessary resources – to relevant functions in the organisation.

Mr Smith said that, surprisingly, this was among the most common audit failures.

“This leads to the ‘silo’ effect, where internal teams are working independently of each other," he said.

"Businesses that fail this aspect of their audit commonly struggle to meet their objectives.”

3. Important functions of the business are not monitored

Mr Smith said quality management audits looked for evidence that the organisation was monitoring performance at each appropriate level.

"For instance, a company might want to improve the efficiency of its customer-facing staff but is unlikely to achieve this if they don’t implement a scheduling system they can measure," he said.

"Our assessments of organisations have found that monitoring processes have not always been developed or followed.

"Again, this makes it a significantly more challenging for businesses to meet their goals.”

4. Short-sighted leadership

Mr Smith said leadership was an area in which successful small-to-medium businesses often shined. 

“In large organisations, I have often seen a section head focus on their own area, not the organisation as a whole," he said.

:This can lead to the ‘silo’ effect and hence inefficiency.” A  

5. Conflicting systems, processes and objectives

Audits frequently identify internal systems and objectives within individual departments that clash with the organisational systems and objectives.  

For instance, an organisation’s call centre may have an efficiency target that requires its operators to limit their call times with each customer.  

This could mean that all of the information required from the customer to provide a quality service is not obtained and this can hinder the achievement of the quality service objectives set by the organisation.

6. Employees don’t receive support to develop competence 

Mr Smith said audits also included auditing the qualifications and competence of employees in various roles.

“When we interview employees, most tell us they were put into a role with very little mentoring and support," he said.

"As a result, they have difficulty in fulfilling the requirements of their role, particularly early on.”

7. Failing to identify and solve problems 

Mr Smith fenior management often fell prey to using profit and loss statements as the only way to monitor the health of the company and make strategic decisions.

“Basing decisions on financials without a focus on the quality of the organisation’s products and services happens a lot – and is not an effective means of identifying problems,” he said.

"In the case where organisations do identify a problem, a significant proportion of audits show that managers don’t have the capabilities available to solve them.

"When the ‘silo’ effect is occurring, problems are sometimes hidden in that department and this can have a negative effect on the whole organisation."

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