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.