ISO 9004 - A stimulating quality management standard for the creative leaders of contemporary sustainable organizations

International management standards can provide organizations with challenging opportunities only if they understand the intended aims and features of those standards and apply them creatively and integrated into their business management. For that to happen, the business leaders of the organizations play the key role. For this subject, this discursive article focuses on the ISO 9004 quality management (QM) standard, which is one of the international management standards, which can be applied to all kinds of organizations. In addition to the opportunities, this article discusses difficulties and pitfalls associated with the ISO 9004 standard, and their possible solutions in practical implementations.