Lessons from Offshore IT Outsourcing in India - Spinning success

The Quality Mantra

India, which for long has had the reputation of being an underdeveloped, poverty stricken and populous nation is now metamorphosing into a "Software Super Power". It has become a world leader in offshore IT outsourcing services, grabbing about 80% of the market. The leading players TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, HCL, Mahindra, Wipro and iGate are familiar names in the Indian markets, for the very fact that they are doing massive business in the global market for offshore IT outsourcing and software development.

In a recent study McKinsey found that the Indian firms ranked at CMM level 5 generating 96% quality improvements and 75% productivity gains whereas U.S. firms ranked at level 2.

To quote Nandan M. Nitekani, former Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer at Infosys, "the fanatical attention to quality has been the key to India's recent success in software development"

India's software lobby, the National Association of Software and Service Companies in New Delhi, estimates that the annual revenue for India's Software Industry will grow from $6 billion this year to $87 billion by 2008. (Please keep checking our blog for latest updates)

Rigorous quality control has been the key mantra of leading Indian software companies. They have clear-cut quality controls to achieve the International requirements.

A good number of these companies strictly follow the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Level for software, besides the quality awards like ISO, which were established by US software guru Watts Humphrey at SEI in 1987,

Factors favoring the Indian invasion in Global IT market at a glance.

  • High competent trained workforce
  • Low labor costs
  • Appreciation for software development disciplines
  • Wide spread use of English Language
  • Good practices for documentation, communication, sign offs and revision scalability, guaranteed delivery underlined by stringent quality standards.
  • Quantitative as well as qualitative process tracking mechanisms to keep an eye on code size, number of modules completed, number of defects found and tests completed.

Understanding the key to India's spinning success in the recent trend of offshore IT outsourcing and imbibing its quality mantra will go a long way in staying ahead.