CMMI
Last night after the office hours I had meeting with Mr. V. According to him, the CMMI presentation for the Japanese software company will be pushed through. While I heard it might be postponed, the company has finally decided to have the presentation on the original date, July 21. We have only less than one week for the preparation.
My role is to conduct the presentation (generic introduction) of CMMI in Japanese based on the English materials (mainly the power point slides) for the executives in that software company. This company has been in the Philippines for several years and mainly conducting the software development with Filipino employees. As explained yesterday (See "Outsourcing"), this is also one of the IT companies that tries to utilize the Filipino human resources. And now to acquire the more legitimate status, they are considering the CMMI assessment.
This company is not exactly using BPO; however, considering the fact that their company revenue has heavily relied on the local human resources, we can call this case a kind of in-house BPO. If I am correct, this is also another trend of the cost cutting strategy in the global situation. In the case of large scale companies, what they do for the reorganization is to create some subsidiary companies where the retrenched employees can work. And if such subsidiary companies are located overseas, then the local employees are hired as well. While many companies are looking for the outsourcing services, it is true that some companies are trying to prepare their own BPO. This is also an interesting phenomenon.
Whether it is internal or external, the point here is that the business operations and transactions have been outsourced, which means that certain separated entities (the different departments or totally different overseas companies) are doing such operations and transactions on behalf. In short, a kind of third party has been involved with the relationship between the company and their clients /customers, and both sides are also the clients of this third party, outsourcing company.
Now, in this situation the problem is how the company can know beforehand that their outsourced third party is trustworthy and promising the professional services. Of course many outsourcing company can submit their nifty, well-presented business models so as to get their clients. But then, these models are just self-presentation, something similar to their advertisements, it might not be really objective.
Another way to evaluate the quality of the outsourcing service is to check how they conduct the present businesses with other clients. If the actual clients have been really satisfied with this outsourcing service, then this company can be trusted. However, it is not so easy to check the customer satisfaction of their other clients from the point of view of confidentiality. Also it is hard to check if the outsourcing company is located overseas. The matter of cultural and language difference might be one of the obstacles.
Thus, it is no wonder that so-called standardized assessment tools are highly required and developed, which can not be influenced by the case by case particular business situation, but well-refined, integrated, trans-cultural and globally set up. That is probably the very reason why ISO and CMMI have been quite focused these days. This globally developed assessment tools can be one of the trustworthy passports to prove the high standard level of the outsourcing company.
Also these tools make each other's lives easier. The company does not have to conduct the preliminary research to check the performance of the outsourcing company they are considering, whereas the outsourcing company does not have to spend their unnecessary time and energy, either, to convince their clients. ISO and/or CMMI can be the clear indicators to convince both sides at once. For example, if the outsourcing company has been already ISO certified and has achieved the level 5 integrity of CMMI, then, this fact itself proves that their outsourcing services are good enough to trust and have the partnership. Unnecessarily negotiations can be omitted.
This is why, many outsourcing companies are now eager to get the ISO and CMMI assessments. And it is also interesting to know that this fact has been generating the new demands particularly for the companies that offer the ISO and CMMI assessment.
My role is to conduct the presentation (generic introduction) of CMMI in Japanese based on the English materials (mainly the power point slides) for the executives in that software company. This company has been in the Philippines for several years and mainly conducting the software development with Filipino employees. As explained yesterday (See "Outsourcing"), this is also one of the IT companies that tries to utilize the Filipino human resources. And now to acquire the more legitimate status, they are considering the CMMI assessment.
This company is not exactly using BPO; however, considering the fact that their company revenue has heavily relied on the local human resources, we can call this case a kind of in-house BPO. If I am correct, this is also another trend of the cost cutting strategy in the global situation. In the case of large scale companies, what they do for the reorganization is to create some subsidiary companies where the retrenched employees can work. And if such subsidiary companies are located overseas, then the local employees are hired as well. While many companies are looking for the outsourcing services, it is true that some companies are trying to prepare their own BPO. This is also an interesting phenomenon.
Whether it is internal or external, the point here is that the business operations and transactions have been outsourced, which means that certain separated entities (the different departments or totally different overseas companies) are doing such operations and transactions on behalf. In short, a kind of third party has been involved with the relationship between the company and their clients /customers, and both sides are also the clients of this third party, outsourcing company.
Now, in this situation the problem is how the company can know beforehand that their outsourced third party is trustworthy and promising the professional services. Of course many outsourcing company can submit their nifty, well-presented business models so as to get their clients. But then, these models are just self-presentation, something similar to their advertisements, it might not be really objective.
Another way to evaluate the quality of the outsourcing service is to check how they conduct the present businesses with other clients. If the actual clients have been really satisfied with this outsourcing service, then this company can be trusted. However, it is not so easy to check the customer satisfaction of their other clients from the point of view of confidentiality. Also it is hard to check if the outsourcing company is located overseas. The matter of cultural and language difference might be one of the obstacles.
Thus, it is no wonder that so-called standardized assessment tools are highly required and developed, which can not be influenced by the case by case particular business situation, but well-refined, integrated, trans-cultural and globally set up. That is probably the very reason why ISO and CMMI have been quite focused these days. This globally developed assessment tools can be one of the trustworthy passports to prove the high standard level of the outsourcing company.
Also these tools make each other's lives easier. The company does not have to conduct the preliminary research to check the performance of the outsourcing company they are considering, whereas the outsourcing company does not have to spend their unnecessary time and energy, either, to convince their clients. ISO and/or CMMI can be the clear indicators to convince both sides at once. For example, if the outsourcing company has been already ISO certified and has achieved the level 5 integrity of CMMI, then, this fact itself proves that their outsourcing services are good enough to trust and have the partnership. Unnecessarily negotiations can be omitted.
This is why, many outsourcing companies are now eager to get the ISO and CMMI assessments. And it is also interesting to know that this fact has been generating the new demands particularly for the companies that offer the ISO and CMMI assessment.
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