My tryst with Quality, achieving CMMi 3 required phenomenal team efforts!!

• Posted Under Latest from Bodhtree
• March 26th, 2013

– A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531BC)

In the technology business quality is paramount in everything you do; it is a primitive component for making customers happy and at the same time building competitive advantage. As I recall my involvement in Bodhtree’s recent CMMi Maturity Level 3 assessment, I would like to share my experiences from the entire journey.

Bodhtree was founded in 1999, with an objective of offering software services and technology solutions to meet complex business challenges of their clients. With this as a mission, it is implicit to win the confidence of our clients by providing them with quality solutions that are best suited for their business needs.

To achieve this goal it is imperative for Bodhtree to improve their QMS (Quality Management Systems), through achieving proven Quality Standards, and the first step in this process is the ISO 9001 accreditation.

As a sequel, Bodhtree got certification of compliance with ISO 9001:2000 in the year 2004 and ISO 9001:2008 in the year 2009. On the ISO certification front, we plan to go for the coveted ISO 27000 SSAE Type – 2 certification in the coming days. Nevertheless one swallow does not make a summer and these baby steps became a harbinger of better days to come for Bodhtree. In this context a requirement for a better Quality Processes & Procedures suggested by another straw in the wind i.e. the rapid growth of the organization, in terms of employee strength, more number of clients, higher turnover, improved work environment, and advanced state–of-the-art technologies. At this point of time (i.e. July 2012) the management took a tenacious & prudent decision to go for CMMi Dev. V 1.3 ML 3 appraisal.

CMMi Dev. V1.3.Ml 3 Appraisal

A purchase order was placed on M/S Prominds in Jan 2012 by our organisation, for Service of Professional Advisory Support of CMMI Dev. V 1.3 ML3. Since then we have crossed several milestones in the journey of getting CMMi Appraisal – like Release of QMS Definition, SQA Reviews, QMS Awareness Trainings, Internal Auditors Training, Appraisal Team Members Trainings, Quiz competitions, Check Point Reviews, Internal Audits, Readiness Reviews and SCAMPI Class A Appraisal Team Training by Mr P.M.Shareef (Lead Appraiser), and finally reached the stage where it was ready for the SCAMPISM Class A Appraisal starting from 28-Jan-2013 to 2-Feb -2013.

During this long journey Bodhtree encountered several challenges in institutionalizing the BCL-QMS (procedures and templates etc…), missed the completion of a few targeted milestones, could not close the audit queries as scheduled, etc. However, during this challenging journey, one optimistic and inspiring trait that we all demonstrated was team work complemented by continued support from top management. Without these encouraging factors, achieving CMMi Level 3 maturity was almost impossible.

On 2-Feb -2013 in the closing meeting, the Lead Appraiser announced “I am pleased to inform you that Bodhtree has been successfully appraised at “CMMI Dev. V1.3 Maturity Level 3”.

On 21-Feb- the CMMi institute approved our appraisal and shared the note given below with our sponsor and Managing Director, Mr. Pal Natarajan:

“The CMMI Institute has accepted SCAMPI appraisal # 19856 for Product Engineering, Analytics & Enterprise Services (PACE) submitted on 02/18/2013. The appraisal is now APPROVED for public use”.

Thanks to all contributors and our relentless effort, today Bodhtree is a CMMi ML 3 company.

Conclusion
Often, survival itself is an achievement. We should not only sustain the Maturity Level 3 rating but also accomplish higher levels of maturity in future.

In this context we should remember the quote from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: “it will be folly to ignore realities; facts take their revenge if they are not faced squarely and well. “

Sreedhar Karnam SEPG Head and account manager for multiple accounts at Bodhtree.

The Fourth Shock: How ‘Stealth Competition’ Fundamentally Transforms Business and Tech

• Posted Under Enterprise Services, Latest from Bodhtree
• September 28th, 2012

When I mention the “Fourth Shock,” the first thing that comes to most people’s mind is “what are the first three shocks?”  As the world transforms through new social, economic and political forces, these shocks reverberate through the business environment. During my recent visit to Stanford University as an invitee to the 60^th anniversary of “Stanford Executive Program,” I learned about the three shocks in a keynote speech by Condoleezza Rice.

The aftermath of Sept 11, 2011 and the impact of terrorism on everyone’s life was the first shock. The whole geopolitical atmosphere changed while traditional perspectives on security and warfare were upended.  The financial meltdown of 2008 and its impact on banks, the auto industry and the world economy constitute the second shock. The ripple effect of this shock has produced long-term fear, and the so-called recovery process still eludes millions of people four years later.  Economists continue to grapple with implications of this crisis on fundamental assumption about the global economy. The third shock is social revolution and collaboration across the world in the form of “global citizen,” as dictators who had ruled for decades were overthrown in the “Arab Springs.” As recent events evidence, the results of this third shock may not be clear for years as uncertainty dominates the region.

Over the last decade there was another important change that produced shockwaves through the business world. It is a phenomenon known as “stealth competition,” and I would like to call it the “Fourth Shock.” The unusually volatile Global 500 rankings and competition in consumer electronics / telecom segments have produced many surprises. Nokia’s dominance in the telephone industry over Motorola was an unexpected development, but the long-term impact may be even greater on small camera manufacturers.  As people started combining phone and camera needs, telecom players have begun making a strong play in the small camera market. This dominance of Nokia was almost immediately challenged by smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung.  Surprisingly, one is a computer manufacturer and the other makes appliances and TV screens. Apple first caught music industry giants like Sony and Panasonic completely off guard, and they are now challenging many traditional players such as IBM, HP, Dell and others.  The industry is in a mode where traditional incumbents no longer command the focus. The big threat is from “stealth competitors” and other trends that are changing business models. The dominance of Google, Facebook and other social collaboration platforms are now challenging the fundamentals of who will pay for the bandwidth while using the telecom infrastructure.

My viewpoint is “products and solutions” will continue to dominate the industry and decide future battlegrounds. However the definition of those products will change. User experience and ability to leverage the ecosystem will become central as opposed to creating large scale enterprise products. The dominance of Oracle, SAP, and IBM in ERP/CRM/SRM type of enterprise products may face competition from unknown players, further fragmenting the market and pushing technology towards ease of use and homegrown apps.   With hardware and hosting costs becoming insignificant, one must now worry about the implosion of large enterprise applications and get ready for the “Fourth Shock” from unknown territories.

Krishna Guda (GK) is CEO of Bodhtree, a leader in ‘PACE’ technology services, including Product Engineering, Analytics, Cloud Computing, and Enterprise Services.   Bodhtree empowers innovative businesses strategies through a mission to Educate, Implement, Align, and Secure transformational technology solutions.

IT Roadmap – Is IT Efficiency Getting Ahead of an Integrated Vision?

• Posted Under Latest from Bodhtree
• July 20th, 2012

By: Chris Tabish

I was the program leader of a CIO visioning effort at a Fortune 500 technology company where the target was to demonstrate the use of its own products for internal operations, aka ‘drink your own wine’.

The project seemed to have everything needed to successfully showcase their exceptional networking and software products.  The company was committed to carrying out the vision, and it dedicated the right leaders for the job—credible and very influential.

But the leaders also had a tremendous amount of pressure to deliver ‘drink your own wine’ quick hits, or short-term, tactical achievements.  This quick hit delivery tempo was part of the company’s culture.  The common belief was these quick hits would keep the overall vision program visible and credible.

One of the first quick hits was an internal ‘Service Operations Center’.  This center would provide technical support to the rest of the company which would soon be using its own products per the vision.  The initial plan was for the operations center to be deployed offshore.  This way, the company could provide 24×7 coverage while saving 40% in labor.  Smart, right?

Then, along came a vision…

Shortly after the quick hit project was launched, the company finalized the ‘drink your own wine’ vision.  Part of this vision articulated a state-of-the art operations center with big-screen TV’s  to display global maps monitoring the company’s products, capabilities and throughput.  This operations center, in fact, would pin-point potential issues before any employee had an indication of the problem, all made possible by the company’s own products.

Best of all, visiting customers would see this slick, professional operation when they went into the onshore facility and—uhhh, wait a minute—-did you just hear a record scratch?  (For those of you born after 1990, that’s a bad thing).  If the company was going to have a state-of-the-art, onshore operation, then what was it doing building itoffshore?

This was a quick hit launched by smart people with great intentions.  However, it still went awry.  In fact, the quick hit had a spend upwards of $1 million by the time it was realized that it wasn’t in alignment with the vision.  What went wrong?  In short, it was not aligned with the vision.  An integrated vision gives CIOs a broad perspective of the playing field so they can factor in all applicable considerations, in this case ‘marketing potential’ in addition to just ‘cost savings’.  This is why having an integrated vision before  launching costly implementations is so critical.

Chris Tabish is Executive Vice President for Bodhtree, which guides SMB and Fortune 500 companies in maximizing the long-term value of their IT investments.  Bodhtree specializes in Product Engineering, Analytics, Cloud Services, and Enterprise Services, providing a cost-effective strategy to align IT with the enterprise’s core vision.