User:Sougata.bhattacharya/ISO JCT1 / SC7 / WG27 - ISO 30105 - ITES-BPO Lifecycle Processes

ISO JCT1 / SC7 / WG27 - ISO 30105 - ITES-BPO Lifecycle Processes

'Background'

ISO (International Standards Organization: http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html) is organized as various Sub Committees (SC). Sub Committee-7 (SC 7) takes care of software systems, service and engineering. Again based on the topic, SC 7 is bifurcated into sub teams.

WG 27 (Working Group 27, a sub team) has been exclusively set up for ITES/BPO. The Project number assigned is ISO 30105.

The first meeting of the WG to develop the standard was in Paris (May 2011). More than 300 technical experts from 40 + countries were a part of this event.

The group is taking up a new approach of "maturity model" to achieve a performance standard for BPOs ( also called as PRM / PAM route), in line with the ISO 15504 series.

The key pain areas that shall be addressed by this standard are:

1. There are unique best practices lying in various standards, however none of the standards give a one stop shop for all ITES/BPO companies. 2. Significant overlap of process areas across standards and the inconsistency associated with its depth leads to wastage of efforts & divergent results. 3. The key customer needs ( BPO customers ) and priorities are not covered in the standards with due detail. 4. Some of the standards do not cover the efficiency and effectiveness parameters / requirements correctly. 5. Some of the standards have nice to do practices which may not benefit neither the customer nor service provider. This becomes a "certification overhead"

Benefits

1. One single global delivery standard for BPO making real comparisons and overall improvement of the sector. 2. "No non – sense standard", which ensures the resources / efforts are not wasted by service providers 3. Improve the customer focus & customer satisfaction, leading to a clear ROI from the certification. Also ability to communicate the benefits to the customers 4. Improve the productivity and the quality of products 5. Reduction in maturing time for start ups & new service providers 6. Comparisons, benchmarks leading to increased innovations 7. For prospective customers make the benefits clearer, thereby enabling overall increase in size of the market.