l How critical
is neoQA in the changing business environment?
In the aftermath of recent natural disasters, terrorism, and equipment
breakdown, businesses have recognized the need for an organization to be
prepared. What has also happened over the past few years is that country options
have expanded and countries other than India are being considered as potentially
great outsourcing centers. The expanded options also have varied the level of
risks. The effect this has had on Indian and other offshore IT companies’
business plans is three-fold: companies will continue to invest in building ‘best
practices’ business continuity plans, they will invest in marketing plans that
are effective and they may invest in outside expertise/or audits to perform
in-depth reviews of the plan to point out improvements. Clients seek to have
that extra "something" from offshore suppliers. This is where a
neutral, third party assurance program like neoQA can provide value.
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l What’s in
it for software companies?
In today’s business environment, any supplier, be it software domain or
back office operations, needs to have the ability to demonstrate results and to
provide some type of assurance against offshore sourcing risks. Sourcing
engagements coming into India and other outsourcing geographies have graduated
from mere initial coding jobs to more diverse areas like data warehousing, call
centers, back office, payroll processing etc. With the increase in engagement
size and scope, the risks increase. The necessity for suppliers to clearly
demonstrate their strategic partnership abilities is across domains and not
merely restricted to software companies.
l What are the
kind of revenues you are looking from this program?
neoQA is a key capability and intellectual property of neoIT. It is part of the
offshoring lifecycle. It is not a driver of revenues for neoIT. Revenues for
neoIT are driven by advisory and sourcing management to companies looking to
outsource. neoQA is part of every offshore deal for neoIT and has been primarily
buyer-driven. While neoQA by itself generates less than 5 % of neoIT revenues,
it is an important factor as to why clients engage neoIT to manage the entire
offshoring lifecycle.
l How do you
plan to take ‘neoQA’ assurance further?
The neoQA assurance program is gaining increased awareness and recognition
among clients and suppliers in the outsourcing industry. In the past six months
we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of clients requesting the neoQA
assurance program prior to selecting their final outsourcing partner. A key
reason for this trend is the visibility clients’ gain into the suppliers’
performance ability, infrastructure, and other such areas that provides
assurance. And because neoQA has turned into a client requested, client-driven
assurance model, we are also seeing increased interest among local suppliers as
well interest from supplier geographies such as China, Russia, Philippines and
Ireland.
l How many new
suppliers does neoIT predict will be certified by neoQA ?
We estimate that another 25 to 50 global suppliers will apply for neoQA
certification over the next year and an even greater number of buyers will
request neoQA due diligence as part of their offshoring process.
l Who are
Indian customers?
neoIT buyers are Global 2000 firms from USA, UK and Australia. neoIT’s Global
Services Network is a knowledge source of over 5,000 vendors, the majority of
these companies are from India, but also include emerging and developed
outsourcing hotspots such as China, Russia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam,
Israel and Ireland. Over the past two years neoQA has verified delivery
assurance for suppliers such as Syntel, HCL-T, VJIL, Hexaware, HPS, ADSI,
Netkraft, Infogenie, EximSoft, Kshema Technologies and other leading outsourcing
firms.
RAHUL GUPTA
CNS in Mumbai