International quality certification for IT firms

Aswathy Sreekumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Getting an ISO or an SEI CMM certification may not be a
distant dream anymore for many small and medium IT firms who want to join the
big league of exporters. The Kerala IT Mission Group and Electronic Research
Test Laboratory (ERTL) under the Union Ministry of Information technology have
come together to enable IT companies find cost-effective method to receive
international certification. The certification process could be made simple,
fast and more cost-effective once a group of IT companies work together as a
`group' towards this goal rather than work individually for it, according to IT
Mission Group, an autonomous agency under the Government of Kerala. The
arrangement would also save the small and medium IT firms the trouble of
identifying a certification agency, conducting initial training programs and
also enabling them to cut costs by 50 per cent. An individual company has to
shell out Rs 3 lakh for establishing processes that enable it to get quality
certification. ERTL has assured the companies that the cost under the ‘group’
scheme could be brought down to Rs 1.25 to 1.5 lakh per company.

The certification assistance program assumes importance in the context of the
decision to impose complex criteria and procedures for conferring quality
certification after 2001. A foreign company interested in doing business with
its Indian counterpart will have tremendous confidence levels in dealing with an
ISO or SEI CMM certified company rather than a non-certified one. The ERTL-IT
Mission Group program is time bound enabling companies to acquire ISO
certification well before December this year. The program is designed in a way
that it provides practical guidelines towards getting ISO certification or STQC
(Standardization, Testing and Quality Certification).

About 30 IT firms have expressed interest in the program and the first set of
companies are expected to get international certification by September this
year. The IT Mission Group is also exploring the possibility of extending
subsidized bank finance for the certification program.