Quality

WE ARE THE PROUD RECIPIENTS OF THE ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001 CERTIFICATE

ISO 9001 is an international standard for organizational quality management. The quality management system is a continuous process that involves the constant improvement of services with the highest quality. A quality management system, compliant with the provisions of the SIST EN ISO 9001:2008 standard, ensures transparency and clarity in operations, management by objectives, process control, professional work, customer and employee satisfaction, as well as the reputation and recognition of FOŠ.

On October 24, 2011, we passed our first certification audit, which we renew every 3 years. Thus, in October 2023, we successfully passed the fourth recertification audit of the faculty's management system according to the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard. With the awarded certificate, we are the first faculty in Slovenia to have integrated the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard into our work. We are particularly proud of the fact that our faculty is one of the 25% of organizations that successfully transitioned to the new ISO 9001:2015 quality management system standard in 2017. We decided to pursue certification at FOŠ primarily because the faculty offers Quality Management programs and because we wanted to demonstrate our credibility also through the introduction of modern approaches in our work.

ISO/IEC 27001 is an international standard that includes requirements related to the Information Security Management System (ISMS). For FOŠ, information represents a significant asset that has its value and needs to be appropriately protected, regardless of the form and method of storage. The primary task of information and information system security is to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability, which is essential for maintaining competitiveness, profitability, legality, as well as the trust and reputation of FOŠ.

In 2014, we upgraded our existing ISO 9001 quality management system with the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001 and since then, we have been renewing its validity every 3 years. Most recently, in October 2023, we passed the third recertification audit of the information security management system. We are also the first faculty in Slovenia to have implemented the requirements of the ISO/IEC 27001 standard into our operations.

Continuous Improvement as a Commitment by the Leadership of FOS

FOS recognizes its mission in education and knowledge transfer of which quality is the decisive foundation towards excellence in all areas. To achieve this mission and contribute to a knowledge based society, we would like to integrate the principles of contemporary paradigms of quality and excellence into our daily work routines. The system of leadership at FOS is based on the fundamentals of the new organizational paradigm:

• Focus on customers (students). At FOS we realize that customers are the primary reason for our existence. For this reason we try to understand and anticipate their needs and expectations, striving to innovate and create value for our students
• Achieving balanced results. FOS implements its mission and progress towards its vision with planning and achieving a balanced array of results that meets the short and long term needs of our stakeholders and when appropriate to exceed them.
• Leadership with vision, inspiration and integrity. FOS wants to have leaders that co-create our future, to realize and be an example of our values and ethics.
• Management by processes. Management at FOS is conducted in structural and strategically coordinated processes and decisions based on facts that creates balanced and sustainable results.
• Achieving success with employees. FOS values its employees and creates a culture of empowerment to achieve balanced goals of our organization and employees.
• Encouraging creativity and innovation. At FOS we try to generate greater value anda higher level of business results with consistent and systematic innovations and exploiting our stakeholder’s creativity.
• Creating partnerships. FOS seeks, develops, and maintains relationships based on trust with various partners and seeks to ensure mutual success. Such partnerships are established with consumers, society, key suppliers, educational institutions or non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
• Taking responsibility for a sustainable future. FOS incorporates into its culture a code of ethics, clear values and the highest standards of its actions. This allows us to strive for economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Focus on Customers

Customer focus is the central and one of the most important building blocks in FOS's management philosophy. We realize that customers are the primary reasons for our existence and for this reason we try to understand and anticipate their needs and expectations and strive to innovate and to create values for them.

In the process of implementing our study programmes, our customers are our students, the process of research and development activities are project clients, conference participants and readers of our publishing activities. Daily activities of FOS include:

• To understand and learn about all our customers, responding to their various needs and expectations and to anticipate them as well
• To create and maintain a dialogue with all customers that is based on openness and transparency
• To strive towards innovation and creation of value for its customers
• To provide our employees with the needed approaches, skills, information and authorization to acquire as much experience with customer service.
• To continually monitor and review the experience and perception of customers and to quickly and effectively respond to feedback.
• Customers that are included in the development of new innovative programs, services, and experiences.
• To compare our performance with the best business organizations (higher education institutions and business excellence organizations) to understand our strengths and to create maximum value for our customers

Our competitive advantage in comparison to other higher education institutions is in our constant focus and authenticity with our customers, and the tendency to exceed their expectations. We realize that the customer is the ultimate assessor of the quality of our work and in our strategic orientations we also included our intention to systematically monitor student satisfaction and satisfaction of our research and development activities.