The IT and IT enabled services has been one of the key driving forces fueling the world’s economic growth. India is the topmost offshoring destination for IT companies across the world. Having proven its capabilities in delivering both on-shore and off-shore services to the clients and with the intervention of emerging technologies, an entire new gamut of opportunities for top IT firms in India is offered. With the availability of highly skilled human resources, good quality of work and various initiatives taken by the Government of India have given great strength to Indian IT Sector. India’s IT and IT Enabled Service accounts for approximately 55% global market share and it contributes significantly to the Indian economy accounting about 8% of India’s GDP in 2020 and it is expected to reach by 10% by 2025.
The IT and IT enabled services can be classified into the following broad categories – IT Services, Engineering Services, ITES-BPO Services and E Business. It can be further categorized into Information Services (IS) outsourcing, packaged software/hardware support and installation, systems integration, processing services and IT training and education services.
Considering significant contribution to the India’s GDP, Government of India in the document ‘Indian National Strategy for Standardization (INSS)’ brought out by Ministry of Commerce and Industry have identified IT and IT Enabled Services as one of the 12 champion services sector and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is given the responsibility to start the standardization work in this Champion Service Sector.
BIS has constituted Service Sector Divisional Council (SSDC) and SSDC created IT and IT enabled Services sectional committee, SSD 10 to cater the standardization work in the field of IT and IT enabled Services. The scope of the committee is given below:
Standardization in the field of services, processes, supporting frameworks, management and governance for the provisioning of IT and IT enabled services in areas such as (but not limited to), contract management, performance management, procurement management, customer satisfaction, contact centre, covering existing and emerging digital and automation technologies’.
The sectional committee is actively exploring the possibility of service standardization in the emerging digital and automation technologies such as Cloud services, digital signature, AI, IoT etc. and also exploring the standardization work done by the other SDO’s/Consortium. As of now, the following two Indian Standards on Customer Contact Centre have been published by IT and IT enabled Services sectional committee:
| S.No | Indian Standard | Title |
| 1 | IS/ISO 18295 (Part 1): 2017 ISO 18295 – 1: 2017 | Customer Contact Centres – Part 1: Requirements for Customer Contact Centres |
| 2 | IS/ISO 18295 (Part 2): 2017 ISO 18295 – 2: 2017 | Customer Contact Centres – Part 2: Requirements for Clients using the services of Customer Contact Centres |
The salient features of standards on Customer Contact Centres:
IS/ISO 18295-1 : 2017 – Customer Contact Centres – part 1 : Requirements for customer contact centres.
This standard specifies service requirements for customer contact centres. It specifies a framework for any Customer contact Centre that aims to assist in providing clients and customers with services that continuously and proactively meet or exceed their needs.
This standard is applicable to both in-house (captive) and outsourced (third party operator) Customer Contact Centres of all sizes, across all sectors and all interaction channels, including inbound and outbound.
IS/ISO 18295 – 2 : 2017 – Customer Contact Centres – Part 2: Requirements for clients using the services of customer contact centres
This standard specifies requirements for organizations using the services of customer contact centres. It aims to ensure that customer expectations are consistently met through the provision and management of appropriate arrangements with Customer Contact Centres meeting the requirements of IS/ISO 18295-1.
This standard is applicable to clients using Customer Contact Centres of all sizes, across all sectors including in-house (captive) centres and outsourced (third party operator) centres, across multiple contact channels, including voice and non-voice media.
Implementation:
The Implementation of these standards would create value for the customer, the client, the employee and the Customer Contact Centre, improving the robustness and efficiency of service, the client/customer contact centre relationship, therefore enabling the Customer Contact Centre to deliver a higher level of customer experience on behalf of the client.
Conclusion:
India is the world’s largest sourcing destination with largest qualified talent pool of technical graduates in the world and according to reports the Indian IT industry’s revenue is estimated to reach US$ 194 billion in FY21 and the largest employer within the private sector.
The push towards the emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Block chain etc; have boosted the global investment in the country. The government several initiates also helping to promote this sector into new heights.
The Standardization in the field of IT and IT Enabled services will further strengthen the IT sector and contribute to streamline the services to emerge as leader in current competitive global market.
By: Dharamsoth Santhosh, Scientist – C,
Service Sector Department – II