As someone who worked for an IT vendor with certification and as someone who was part of the certification team at another place, I can assure you that you're r

As someone who worked for an IT vendor with certification and as someone who was part of the certification team at another place, I can assure you that you're right. The certification is more for the organization/unit and the people working do not realize what they are for. Another thing that usually becomes a problem is the rigidity of the certification. Saying you need X, Y and Z documented is easy, but it doesn't work for projects that maybe don't have Y. So people make up documentation and process just to be compliant, this soon becomes a hinderance to the work. At this point people either abandon the process or follow it and the work suffers.