'BD-CMM model holds promise for small firms'

Small and medium companies can now look forward to scoring sustainable results, thanks to the business development process improvement, excellence and benchmarking model (BD-CMM) being taken to companies' doorsteps by the Glendale-based Software Quality Centre LLC (SCQ).

SCQ chief executive officer Kris Puthucode told Business Standard here that BD-CMM was by far the only available excellence model for structured business development.

"The Indian infotech sector has been putting into practice CMM models for more than a decade now. Now with the advent of BD-CMM, the gap between pre-sales, sales and delivery functions in a company can be bridged," he added.

The CMM for business development is currently being employed by business development managers of 30-plus companies worldwide, and the results have been amazing, according to Puthucode.

BD-CMM is developed based on special permission from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), which is the custodian of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the benchmarking model in the industry for software and software intensive systems development.

The model has been developed by the US-based Business Development Institute International (BD-I) and the exclusive license for it in Asia has been granted to SCQ, Kris said.

Adding that the Thiruvananthapuram Technopark companies stand to gain a lot by adopting the BD-CMM model for excellence, Kris Puthucode said that SCQ was currently talking to various business development heads at the companies based here.

"By the end of 2007, we expect to see at least 2"�3 early adopters of this model, which has been developed as a framework, guide and path for managing and improving business development processes."

A company may have to shell out around Rs 5 lakh for getting its business development process finely structured with the BD"�CMM model.

The process aimed at excellence and sustained results would be complete with the company being granted the BD-CMM certification.