IT evolves from low-cost option to high-value aide

Quality is becoming a serious business goal and intrinsic part of the organisational culture. Recognising its importance, Nasscom is organising a three-day summit in Bangalore from  September 6 to 7. Business Standard asked Sangeeta Gupta, vice president, Nasscom, where the Indian IT-ITES companies stand in this respect. Excerpts:

Quality is very important for the Indian IT industry. Your comment.

Indian IT-ITES companies are evolving from being a preferred low-cost option to becoming a high-value partner for the global industry. In line with that evolution, local companies are now redefining/setting global benchmarks in quality to differentiate and attain business excellence.

Having implemented international standards such as ISO, CMM, Six Sigma etc., Indian companies are seeking to push the envelope on quality and productivity by introducing adaptations more suitable for remote service delivery.

Does the Indian IT industry live up to quality standards?

India has 82 SEI CMM Level 5 certified and more than 400 quality certified IT-ITES companies; higher than any other country in the world.

Today, almost all companies have dedicated quality departments responsible for developing, deploying and reviewing quality policies and practices.

Most of the large and medium companies today have a dedicated in-house team or resources, and the trend is increasing, even in smaller companies, as Quality is increasingly becoming a key differentiator in the IT sector.

Can you give some examples?

We cannot share a specific company example, but on a macro level the imperatives of maintaining high levels of quality in service delivery are well accepted across the Indian IT-ITES industry and are reflected in the high degree of quality orientation demonstrated by the companies.

Over the years, companies have successfully addressed the challenge of maintaining high levels of service quality in spite of the rapid growth in scale and scope, through a strong emphasis on training and building a quality-focused work culture in their respective organisations.

How is Nasscom helping in this regard?

Nasscom has undertaken several initiatives to drive awareness and adoption of best practices in process excellence and service quality through setting up of a Quality Forum.

Key initiatives of the forum include facilitating intra-industry and industry-academia interactions to share best practices and new concepts in quality improvement, building associations with internationally-recognised organisations like CMU, ISBSG, IFBUG, with the aim of asserting that best software practices emanates out of India, cluster certification programmes for emerging companies/SME.

What about the cluster certification programme for SMEs?

The cluster programme has been designed to extend consulting and appraisal services for quality certifications to its SME members. Under the programme, a group of companies can avail of these services from a professional consultant. The latter provides a 'group discount' to these companies -- making it a win-win proposition.

What will be the highlights of this year's Nasscom's Annual Quality Summit 2006?

Termed 'Setting Benchmarks in Global Outsourcing'; the summit will focus on addressing the present and future quality requirements of the global outsourcing industry.

The three-day summit will comprise 'Tutorials' on day one, followed by an industry conference, over the next two days. This year's Quality Summit has reinvented itself to focus on strategies that Indian companies need to adopt to set global standards in quality systems and continuous quality improvement to establish itself as a world-class player in the outsourcing space.

Some of the international brands participating in this year's summit are CA, CSC, Satyam, Accenture, AppLabs, Thinksoft, Software Quality Centre, IBM, WEBEX, Brigade Group, Digite and Bspin.