Info Tech Enterprises Assessed at CMM Level 5 The Highest Level of  SEI Certified Process Quality

Hyderabad, April , 2002: InfoTech Enterprises Limited, the leading Software and Services Company from Hyderabad, has been assessed at Level 5 of the Capability Model (CMM) of the Software Engineering Institute for its Software Development & Services. The achievement is yet another momentous landmark in InfoTech’s pursuit on continuous process improvement. It covers practices for planning, engineering and managing software development and maintenance, which improves the ability of the organization to meet goals for cost schedule, functionality and product quality.

The SEI CMM Level 5 assessment for the Software development & Services business was conducted by a 8 member team headed by Mr. Tumu Satish Kumar from Quality Assurance Institute (QAI), a certified Lead Assessor from SEI USA. Mr. Gururaj Managuli of QAI, an authorized CBA-IPI Lead Assessor was the Observer. The assessment covered all the divisions in the Software group namely Business, Internet, Engineering and GIS software and services. 

Commenting on the assessment, Mr. Tumu Satish, the Lead Assessor said " It is a pleasure to be associated with InfoTech in their journey from CMM Level 4 in August, 2001 to Level 5 now. The organization has shown considerable improvement in its process maturity, which is demonstrated in terms of quantitative results. The organization’s commitment and the sophisticated Metrics tool developed in-house are some of the success factors for their achievement. Compared to some other assessments that we have been associated with, InfoTech’s investment in training their software engineers is significantly high."

InfoTech’s journey of excellence began with the success of ISO 9002 for its conversions services division in August 1995 followed by an ISO 9001 for its software development services in September 1999. The quest for excellence and continuous improvement in process being the driving force at InfoTech, the company achieved ISO 9001: 2000 in July 2001 from BVQi London. With this, InfoTech joined the top few companies in India to be certified with ISO 9001: 2000 standards and certainly the first company in the GIS services sector. 

SEI CMM Level 5 is an affirmation of the continued trust on Quality and signifies commitment of the highest order. The philosophy is the organization has been to ‘Always Outperform and set new and higher standards- only to beat it to do better.’ Out of a total strength of around 320 software engineers and managers in Hyderabad, 75 were interviewed by the assessment team. The assessment team examined conformity to 48 goals and 294 key practices in 17 key process areas for CMM Level 5 assessment and found that InfoTech meets all the goals. While InfoTech had been assessed in August, 2001 on SEI CMM Level 4, this assessment again covered all the key process areas from Level 2 to Level 5. The external assessment thus re-confirmed the institutionalization of the CMM processes in the organization. The assessment team noted that over 250 suggestions for improvements in the software development process itself were made in the last seven months by InfoTech software engineers working on projects and over 60 of them were accepted and implemented.

In the last few years, InfoTech has also transformed itself from being a pure GIS conversion services company, to an end-to-end solution provider in the areas of GIS, Engineering and E-solutions. InfoTech had demonstrated its capability to move up the value chain significantly. InfoTech is providing its software development capabilities on mission critical applications to FORTUNE 100 companies like United Technologies Corporation USA, Ford USA, Vodafone Germany and several others.

Rajeev Lal, Chief Operating Officer E-Solutions said "With the successful assessment at SEI CMM Level 5, InfoTech has joined the select group of companies who have processes confirming to the highest level of quality in software development world-wide. We have seen significant improvement in customer satisfaction from the time when we started CMM implementation and we expect that this will improve further.

In the current outsourcing wave, this Assessment will enable us to be evaluated favorably as an offshore supplier of excellent software services by overseas customers and prospects.

We were able to achieve Level 5 in a short period of time with the dedicated efforts of highly motivated and skilled software engineers and managers. This success encourages us to implement CMM Integrated model at the earliest." 

Commenting on the achievement, Chairman and Managing Director BVR Mohan Reddy said, "SEI CMM Level-5 is a significant achievement in the history of the Company. Our Associates have demonstrated unstinted commitment, hard work and maturity to attain this accreditation for the highest quality standard in record time. Through these matured quality processes, we will be in a position to deliver highest quality levels, on time at affordable costs to customers world wide".

About SEI CMM 
The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM), of Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Melon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, is a framework that describes the key elements of an effective software process. The CMM describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad hoc, immature process to a mature, disciplined process. 

Read The Profile on Mr. BVR. Mohan Reddy in Reachout's "Business Personality of The Month'

Also read Reachout's Company Review of 'Info Tech Enterprises'

Reachout's News Bureau
-April '2002

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