New
Delhi: The ministry of communication and information
technology (MCIT) and Nasscom have joined hands to step
up a quality movement in the nascent Indian call-centre
industry. Recently, a workshop on quality initiatives
at call-centres was organised in New Delhi to discuss
various quality-related issues and to evolve a strategy
for India to emerge as a sustainable destination for the
call-centre and back-office industry.
Inaugurating
the workshop, IT secretary R R Shah emphasised the need
for quality service in the IT-enabled sector. Standardisation
Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) director Dr S
L Sarnot welcomed the audience. It was followed by a presentation
by Nasscom call-centre and BPO forum convenor Arun Seth
and an India Advantage presentation by Nasscom president
Kiran Karnik.
During the inaugural function, Shah said: "The call-centre
business offers enormous employment opportunities and
revenue growth. But an inadequate quality service and
mushrooming growth can adversely affect Indias image
and potential opportunities."
Supporting his views, Seth in his presentation stressed
the need for setting a national standard, which call-centre
organisations can follow to improve on their processes
and operational methodology. He said: "Along with
quality and standardisation, adequate training infrastructure
is the need of the hour. And Nasscom, through its call-centre
forum, has already initiated steps towards the same."
Karnik said: "Nasscom is undertaking various initiatives
so that the quality advantage that India enjoys for the
IT services industry domain also becomes a trademark for
the ITES industry. Currently there are no standards that
cover the entire spectrum for ITES, especially in the
context of overseas outsourcing. There are, of course,
existing ISO standards and some standards that are specific
to call-centres, but this particular initiative of MCIT
with Nasscom for quality improvement in call-centre operations
will play a significant role in bringing standardisation
in the call-centre industry."
"MCIT, together with Nasscom, will explore the possibility
of a tie-up with other international certification agencies
so that the cost of certification is reduced and made
affordable for Indian call-centres," he said.
The deliberations at the workshop highlighted the initiatives
that STQC has already taken in terms of standardisation
by evolving draft guidelines for call-centres based on
worldwide-accepted ISO 9001 standard. Moreover, a core
team of STQC engineers is in the process of framing certification
scheme, compliance to which shall ensure an adequate level
of quality in operations of call-centres.
STQC director-general Dr S L Sarnot said: "We will
formulise schemes for certification of personnel at the
agent as well as manager level, so that skilled manpower
is available to the industry in this area. Depending on
the industrys response, these certification schemes could
be extended to other IT-enabled services like geographical
information system, HR and data entry and data conversion."
About STQC
MIT
set up the STQC directorate to provide the standardisation,
testing and certification support to the Indian electronics
industry for improving their product quality and increasing
their competitiveness in the global market. STQC functions
through 22 laboratories throughout the country, providing
services to industries in testing and calibration, product
development assistance, system reliability prediction
and assessment, education and on-the-job training in quality
and reliability, with a manpower strength of 600 engineers
and scientists.
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