ISO 37000 is an international standard for organizational governance that expresses the universal consensus that the guidance offered throughout the standard constitutes good governance. The ISO 37000 standard applies to any organization that wants its governing body to demonstrate good governance, whether it be a small business or a major corporation. ISO 37000 is the widely accepted consensus on what constitutes ethical and successful organizational governance. The ISO 37000 standard applies to all organizations, regardless of size, location, structure, or purpose. The standard, among other prescriptions, includes principles that can assist governing bodies in how to satisfy their responsibilities so that the organizations they oversee can fulfill their goals. These principles include:
- Defining Purpose, which describes the purpose for being from every perspective and serves as the foundation for alignment with all other organizational activities.
- Value Model with established strategic value creation, value generation, value delivery, and sustainability components needed to achieve the purpose
- Continuously oversee the Strategy’s resource utilization, direction through policy, adherence to ethics, innovation, and sustainability, all while referencing the value generation model.
- Providing effective oversight for organizational performance and ensuring that the organization meets all requirements, including those regarding its competence to govern, maintaining capability to perform, effective oversight, providing sufficient assurance, and assuring value protection and value erosion recovery.
- Establishment of an accountability structure to hold individuals to whom the governing body has delegated authority(s) accountable, guaranteeing key actor integration, effective compliance management, and disclosers.
- Ensure stakeholder involvement and achieve stakeholder expectations, including human resource management and relationship management, based on ethical values.
- Providing ethical (Integrity) and successful (Performance) leadership, as well as setting the tone at the top for an ethical, trusting, and collaborative culture. This idea can be helped by ISO 37000:2021 training online, which also necessitates the construction of a system that promotes a culture of transparency, accountability, probity, competency, inclusivity, and diversity.
- Providing security, appropriate access, and the use of data as a resource for decision-making while prioritizing responsible technology use within the right legal and regulatory framework.
- Make sure there is efficient risk governance, having a focus on the strategy and risk appetite-driven risk management regime integrated at the strategic and operational level with distinct ownership and oversight accountabilities. To encourage a healthy risk culture, the governing body should also assure consistent application of the risk management process and integration of risk formulation into decision-making.
- Upholding social responsibility, which entails transparent, well-balanced decision-making that is in line with broader societal standards and the organization taking accountability for its impact on the society in which it operates.
- The governing body should also assess, innovate, and ostensibly ensure viability and moral performance over time while addressing more general sustainability challenges, i.e., doing well over the long term without endangering present and future generations.
The benefits of ISO 37000:2021 governance of organizations’ compliance certification
- enhances the sustainability, accountability, and fairness of an organization
- System, method, and process improvements to identify warning signs and prevent major incidents
- increases the level of trust between stakeholders, stockholders, and people in general
- demonstrates the organization’s commitment to responsibility, openness, and integrity
- Increases the organization’s credibility in the marketplace as a result of its conscious commitment to responsible management
- Provides a competitive edge among possible business partners who perceive a well-governed organization.
- Reduces the possibility of system failure within the organization.
- Conforms to internationally recognized and generally recommended regulatory requirements for an effective company compliance program.
- Helps to develop an integrated management system foundation that contributes to complying with other standards such as ISO 37002:2021 (Whistleblowing Management Systems), ISO 37301 (Compliance Management Systems), and ISO 37001:2016 (Anti-Bribery Management System).