NASSCOM hosts Quality Summit
By Sohini Bagchi   |   Wednesday, 06 September 2006, 19:30 IST
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Bangalore: NASSCOM, the ‘voice’ of the IT software and services industry, has hosted its two-day annual Quality Summit in the city starting from today. With ‘Setting Benchmarks in Global Outsourcing’, as the theme, the summit addresses the present and future quality requirements of the global outsourcing industry. On the occasion, Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, told SmartTechie, “Quality and Innovation would be the key differentiators and growth drivers for Indian IT companies in the future. Indian companies having established themselves as preferred outsourcing partners globally, are now redefining or setting global benchmarks in quality to differentiate and attain business excellence.” India has 82 SEI CMM Level 5 certified and more than 400 quality certified IT-ITES companies, which is 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. The objective of the summit is to highlight the aspects of quality and set benchmarks for Indian companies to emerge as centres of excellence globally. Furthermore, the forum drives awareness and adopts best practices in process excellence and service quality,” says Karnik. To promote a culture of quality consciousness in the Indian IT industry, NASSCOM has recently undertaken several initiatives. He informs that the body has teamed up with institutions like SEI, IFPUG, IIT, IIM, IIIT, IISc, etc to organize various examinations in India for defining skill sets and training needed for professionals working in quality departments of companies. NASSCOM is also preparing research reports, case studies and white papers on quality in India, to benchmark them with international best practices. The forum brings together industry experts from across the globe to share their experiences and best practices on various topics. The summit further emphasizes on the needs of the domestic IT market. Says F.C Kohli, former Chairman, NASSCOM, “So far, most of the activities done by Indian IT companies are at a global scale, but there is a need to address the domestic market as well.” For this purpose, the premier trade body is also reaching out to Indian SMEs by organizing workshops on quality and cluster programs “It is important to develop more software in local languages for the domestic customers. This will not only strengthen the local market but also create more jobs in the country,” he adds. There were thought provoking panel discussions on ‘Does Too Much Process Stifle Innovation?’ and ‘People Factor - Impact of People Quality on Business Value’. Insightful sessions were held on topics such as ‘Process Innovation and Change Management’, ‘Excellence in BPO & Beyond’, ‘Setting the Quality Standards in outsourcing’ and ‘Technology Platforms For Global Delivery Operations’ among others.

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