BPOs Scramble For Certification
KALPANA SHAH

Economic Times--June 2, 2003

They sound like little boys who love to brag: My Dad’s stronger than yours! But if you are an Indian company in the ITES (information technology enabled services) or BPO (business process outsourcing) field, the severe global competition to get your phones ringing makes it imperative that your brag is close to the real thing.

So if ICICI Onesource sends out a press release stating that they are the first in India to get a British certification called BS-7799, it is followed in quick succession by another from MsourcE, the call centre subsidiary of MphasiS group. This one states that MsourcE has “become the first call centre in the country to be awarded the BS-7799-2: 2002 certification.”

Being the first among several companies to achieve a standard may be rewarding by itself, but few realise that there isn’t just one finishing line at the end of the race. There are several! One standard may be for controlling the confidentiality, integrity and availability of a company’s information and information systems. Another may be for improved processes, yet another may be for “quality in all things”.

Still, the race is on, and in actual terms it really doesn’t matter who reaches the goal first—the aim is to reach it. Even that, after a while, isn’t crucial, says PV Kannan. Mr Kannan is the founder and CEO of 24/7 Customer. Although his company spent close to Rs 1 crore on getting the coveted COPC certification, Mr Kannan says having the certification by itself doesn’t guarantee customer wins. “When the industry started out some four years ago, it was necessary to have the certification because that was the only way to prove that we may be capable of doing the job. But once you have a good portfolio of a dozen or more Fortune 500 companies, nobody asks to see your qualifications. It is simply assumed that you have the required systems in place,” he says. According to Vaibhav Tewari, CEO India of iSeva Systems, “We are ISO 9001 and 2000 certified but most clients have their own quality specifications anyway. They check by means of a customer satisfaction index, they set the targets, the parameters and the quality measures. But we still will go for SEI CMM certification for call centres once Satyam comes out with its programme.”

Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO of TransWorks, says that COPC is the only standard that’s most relevant to the ITES industry. “We are the only one in India who is certified for the latest COPC standard. When we got into the business, obviously we weren’t qualified. But the standard was so relevant that it helped us build the business in an orderly manner. At later stages, the standard helps the management in the crucial phase of scaling up the business,” he says. For him, the certification is not just about getting doors to open but in setting up a neat, tidy and efficient home before the inspector arrives. TransWorks spent about Rs 30 lakh initially and intends spending a slightly smaller amount on re-certification in future.

Meanwhile, at WNS, a Warburg funded BPO firm, the team is working on successful implementation of Six-Sigma, COPC, PCMM and BS 7799 standards while retaining its ISO 9000 title. “WNS is among the first BPO companies in India to receive third-party certification for its Quality Management System based on ISO 9000, certified by Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQI) and both our Mumbai and Pune delivery centres are fully ISO compliant,” says a spokesperson.

At Daksh, they have COPC for quality, and a certificate for efficiency and effectiveness awarded by the Center for Customer Driven Excellence, Purdue University, US. Says Chiranjiv Singh, chief quality officer at Daksh, “We spent Rs 30 lakh on COPC. The Purdue University Certification was virtually free. The certification process is a powerful management tool. When properly executed, the process uncovers areas needing management attention. And this is certainly good business sense as it provides an opportunity to prevent potential failures, or ‘below-bar’ performance.”

For Indian companies, getting the degree cannot be avoided though most companies in the BPO space in the UK don’t need to have such certifications. Indians have worked harder than most in the IT services space to prove that they can deliver quality and if getting certifications smoothens the rough road to success even a little bit, it’s worth spending time and money on it initially. It may still take a while, but Mr Kannan of 24/7 says quality will soon be a given in India’s BPO industry.

At that point, the running race may well become a hurdle race.