Carnegie Mellon standard for ITeS

After enabling companies to achieve a higher level of efficiency with the famous Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Carnegie Mellon University is all set to introduce a similar standard of certification for the IT-enabled industry called the eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers (eSCM-SP).

The eSCM-SP certification was made available in April this year. Carnegie Mellon University's IT Services Qualification Centre (ITsqc) has authorised Underwriters Laboratories (UL) to evaluate organisations interested in adopting the university's eSCM-SP. UL will be the third-party evaluator, while Carnegie Mellon will issue the certificate.

The eSCM-SP includes 84 best practices that the ITsqc has identified as being associated with successful sourcing relationships.

While most of the existing practices focus on the delivery aspect of IT-enabled companies, eSCM-SP is the only programme focussed on the entire sourcing lifecycle that certifies the capability of service providers.

Speaking to the Business Standard, William (Bill) Hefley, associate director, IT services, qualification centre, Carnegie Mellon University, said, "Considering the manner in which the IT-enabled services industry in India is growing, we feel that the timing of this eSCM-SP model is spot on. We came up with the model because we felt that the earlier CMM practices did not fit the services business."

eSCM-SP is the second version of a model for the IT services industry from Carnegie Mellon. The first version came out over three years ago. But, it was only during December 2003 that a company was certified with the first version.

"Most of the companies took time to become aware of the first version. Also, they were aware that we were about to come out with the second version and preferred waiting for it. We launched the second version in April, 2004 and these practices will last for the next five years before it needs to be modified."

Carnegie Mellon, along with UL India, has already initiated a dialogue with the Indian IT-enabled services industry, including all BPO firms, on the adoption of eSCM-SP.

Stating that companies have so far as been "very receptive", Hefley added, "BPO companies were looking at benchmarking themselves to standards that can address all their processes. Most of the existing models focus only on the delivery aspect, eSCM-SP is the only model that focuses on the entire sourcing lifecycle that certifies the capability of service providers."

According to J C Sekar, director (quality solutions), Asia Pacific, UL International Services Ltd., "The time taken for certification could be six months if a company is already following complex processes that are high-end in nature. It could take longer for those who are not following such stringent methodologies. The focus of this model is on pre-delivery and post-delivery processes. There are five levels of certification. The last level is purely on sustaining the best practices achieved in the previous levels, which will be monitored every two years."

Carnegie Mellon and UL India are hosting a series of road shows along with Nasscom to create an awareness of this new model.

They are confident that many Indian IT-enabled companies will look at benchmarking themselves with eSCM-SP before the end of this fiscal.

Carnegie Mellon is also working on an eSCM for Client Organisations (eSCM-CL) model, which will also be assessed by UL for client organisations to adhere to best practices in sourcing management.