India has long been at the forefront of the quality movement in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)and outsourcing in general. Between all the countries India succeeded as one of the most chaotic and volatile societies on earth and Indians are known for their confrontational, energetic and willing to break rules probably at all the time. Moreover, Indian managers recognized at a very early stage the value in creating process based organizations and investing time and money into quality standards and certifications. In India the standards and certifications sought by India based operations that have become the established benchmark for quality in both BPO and IT outsourcing.
Methods and Tools used for achieving the efficiency in Outsourcing:
ISO 9000:
The ISO 9000 family of standards are maintained by the International Organization for Standardization remains the most basic quality standard sought by new BPO and outsourcing players and between the most common standards adapted by Indian industry players. In fact, their consistency has resulted in ISO reaching a stage in maturity where they are considered to be almost generic quality standards. Basically it was developed for the manufacturing sector, ISO standards are applicable across industries and sectors. Hence, they have already been adapted by most BPO and outsourcing players. ISO standards deal mainly with the management systems that are used to design, produce, deliver and support products and services and the basic principles are, Customer focus, Leadership, Involvement of people, Mutually beneficial supplier relationships and etc.
Total Quality Management (TQM):
This model is applicable across industries and sectors. Today, as ISO has matured and there is little in the way of competitive advantage gained from it, TQM has become the next stage in the quest for quality – usually three years after the implementation of ISO in an organization. In fact, implementing ISO will put 80% of the necessary steps for TQM in place and hence, TQM could almost be considered as an add-on to ISO. Hence, Indian BPO and outsourcing organizations are adopted this model as a standard management philosophy.
Six Sigma:
In the same manner that ISO as a high quality standard and TQM as a management philosophy have become standards in Indian BPO and outsourcing organizations, Six Sigma has increasingly become a standard tool to fine tune, perfect and improve outsourced business processes. It defines the objectives of the improvement activity, Measure the current system to collect relevant data etc. This model is designed to force systematic change and to identify and resolve problems that are preventing an organization from achieving its goals.
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI):
Like Six Sigma, This is also an another process improvement approach that is specifically intended for the software engineering organizations. CMMI was released in 2002 as the successor to the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) that was developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI) from 1987 into the late 1990s and widely carried out by the Indian software industry. And the CMMI is focused on what processes should be carried out and not so much with how these processes can be carried out.
eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers (eSCM):
Like CMMI, this model also was developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s IT Services Qualification Center (ITSqc) specifically for IT organizations but is it focused on improving relationships among them and their customers. Currently, this model has the two capability models, the eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers (eSCM-SP) which was released in 2004 and the eSourcing Capability Model for Client Organizations (eSCM-CL) which was released in 2006. Apart from these, a third capability model based on the eSecurity is under development.
These are all the some of the tools and methods that are used for achieving the excellence in Business process outsourcing and Outsourcing in general.
