By IANS
Bangalore : Infosys BPO Ltd, a subsidiary of the IT bellwether, Monday announced that it was certified for e-Sourcing Capability Model for service providers (eSCM-SP v2.0) at level 4 by the reputed Carnegie Mellon University's IT services qualification centre.
The rating makes Infosys the first Indian firm to be certified by the US-based University as a non-member of its research consortium (ITSqc).
"This is the highest rating conferred upon an organisation at the first capability determination. As the certification extended to our Brno centre in the Czech Republic, the rating makes us the first BPO player to be certified with multiple delivery centres," Infosys co-founder and board member K. Dinesh told reporters here.
In a teleconference from the university, ITSqc associate director Bill Hefley said the US-based Underwrtiers Laboratories (UL) conducted the evaluation as an independent third-party for 45 days beginning January, involving 84 best practices of the BPO subsidiary.
"The certification is valid for two years. The company is open to re-certification in 2009, when it can attempt to get evaluated at level 5, the highest in the eSCM for IT-enabled services firms," Hefley said.
The $147-million Infosys BPO has centres in Bangalore, Delhi, Jaipur and Pune in India. Besides Brno, it recently opened two overseas centres in China and Mexico.
With a combined headcount of 11,200, the subsidiary services about 30 overseas clients, including 16 of the parent company.
About 34 percent of the total revenue is derived from telecom, 28 percent from manufacturing, 24 percent from banking and commerce and the balance from other horizontal services.
According to Infosys BPO CEO and managing director Amitabh Chaudhry, the certification would enable the subsidiary to have a competitive edge in the rapidly growing IT-enabled services sector and pitch for more clients in the global market.
"Operational excellence continues to be a key differentiator and focus area for us. The certification is significant as it has a number of firsts to its credit. It has taken 18 months for us to prepare for the evaluation. The rating demonstrates our delivery capability and high quality of innovation, processing and improvement," Chaudhry said.