QAI, Bill Curtis set up center of excellence

BANGALORE: To meet challenges thrown by the burgeoning knowledge based economy, QAI India, a process improvement firm, has launched the center of excellence for global workforce strategy and development in Bangalore.

The center of excellence will be set up in collaboration with Bill Curtis, thought leader and co-author of People Capability Model (People CMM), the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM).

In his remarks,  Bill Curtis emphasised that the center of excellence will be address the area of workforce strategy, development and talent-based innovation and will leverage the People CMM framework by undertaking activities such as research, publication and product and IP creation.

"The knowledge based economy poses new challenges for every country. The challenge to produce more people that can seamlessly integrate into knowledge based economy; the challenge to produce agile work force; the challenge to consciously innovate and the challenge to work is extremely complex environments" said Bill adding the key to meeting all these challenges calls for effective workforce strategy.

Bill said that the centre will meet these challenges by helping create a global community of practitioners, linked by a knowledge repository of best practices and providing People CMM consulting, training and assessment services to organizations across industries worldwide.

The center has also formed a strategic partnership in the area of research, innovation and publications with the Indian School of Business (ISB) Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (CITNE). This strategic partnership intends to leverage the research orientation of CITNE and expertise and process capabilities of QAI, along with the thought leadership of Bill Curtis.

" ISB believes in creating research and following the tie-up ISB will become a place where researchers across the globe will create a lot of quality research and then deliver it to the doorstep of IT industry to help them to meet up with the challenges " said Ravi Bapna , Executive Director, CITNE.

Underscoring the need for such a platform, Navyug Mohnot, CEO, QAI India said that the initiative will contribute to the organization's ability to create an agile and innovative workforce.

In a further joint initiative, Bill Curtis and CITNE at ISB will introduce a graduate (PhD) student residency program. The launch of center will be followed by a series of events and trainings slated for October, 2006 in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and London.