CASE STUDIES FROM AFRICA

Annex 3: Standards and Certifications for ITS and BPO
Standards and certifications are increasingly important for securing contracts and expanding
markets abroad, though Senegal’s success has evolved largely in the absence of widespread
certification in either the ITS or BPO sector. While some firms consulted for the study felt Senegal
needed to catch up in this regard to maintain its competitiveness, others were of the view that
focussing on international business certifications was not a priority at this time, preferring instead
to consider more appropriate African standards.
ITS
Quality certifications (such as ISO 9000-3, SEI CMM, and SEI CMMI) 37 are sought by ITS companies
to demonstrate a certain level of quality and maturity in their business processes. Not only are these
useful for marketing purposes, nowadays, major clients often require them as way of assessing the
company’s processes and thus gauging their ability to deliver on the project being tendered.
However these certifications are costly and time consuming to obtain. In 2013, data provided by
Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI) indicated that no Senegalese ITS
company had been certified for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), though
consultations undertaken for this study indicated the presence of a number of CMMI-certified
employees.
African Countries with CMMI-Certified Companies
As of late 2013, the following African countries have CMMI-certified companies: Egypt (22),
South Africa (5), Kenya (2), Angola (1), Morocco (5), Mauritius (1), and Tunisia (1). For
additional details, see https://sas.cmmiinstitute.com/pars/pars.aspx
BPO
The international standard for quality and efficiency of call centres is the Customer Operations
Performance Center (COPC) standard. Developed by buyers, providers, and senior managers
responsible for operational management, COPC is designed to increase service, quality, customer
satisfaction, and revenue, while reducing cost. By early 2014, no Senegalese call centre had achieved
COPC certification, though one of the leading firms had initiated the process to obtain certification
of its Dakar site.
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International Organisation for Standardisation, Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model, and
Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Integration.
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