More Thai firms get CMMI appraisal | Bangkok Post: tech

SOFTWARE INDUSTRY

Thailand has stepped up to second place in Southeast Asia in terms of the number of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) companies which have generated over 190 million baht in revenue for the Thai economy.

Twenty three CMMI companies in Thailand celebrated their success after passing the CMMI standard appraisal.

CMMI is a process improvement approach that helps organisations improve their performance, the standard endorsed by the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon, US.

Those 23 companies are supported by Software Park Thailand and the National Science and Technology Development Agency (Nstda) through the SPI@ease program, the initiative to support software entrepreneurs running process improvement.

According to Nstda director Thaweesak Koanantakool, the market share of Thailand has been declining because the software industry is globalised and the business process is similar globally. The process of CMMI will help Thai software companies to focus on areas they excel in. Meanwhile the SPI@ease program will also help the production process to gain international recognition.

Citing a survey of software spending according to the economic sectors in 2009, Thaweesak said the banking sector spent more than 10 billion baht, telecom sector over 8 billion baht, education some 7 billion baht, logistics of over 3 billion baht, insurance firms over five billion baht, healthcare over 2.5 billion baht, and the public sector spent more than 13 billion baht.

The SPI@ease program is thus another significant way for software entrepreneurs to improve their processes to meet the global standard and have them to be competitive with overseas software.

"Those companies who passed the CMMI standard become more capable to expand their business and some of them can do the consulting jobs overseas, especially in China and this region including Vietnam and the Philippines," Thaweesak said, noting that the first phase of SPI@ease program has spurred more than 190 baht of revenue for the country.

With the success of the three-year SPI@ease program that strengthens the ecosystem of the Thai software industry, the director said Nstda and Software Park have conducted the second phase program consecutively, with support from the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa). "We expect that there will be more than 190 million baht income created by the second phase of the program," he said.

Somchai Chatratana, Nstda's Technology Management Centre (TMC) deputy executive director, said that the 23 companies have passed the CMMI level 2, 3, and 5, and nine of them were also qualified as CMMI consulting companies.

The software production process improvement helps the companies to reduce their costs and enables them to intensify the business. More than half of the companies have increased their capital up to 10 times.

Currently, there are some 38 CMMI companies here and Thailand is ranked the seventh in Asia and second in Southeast Asia, while Malaysia is top with 71 CMMI companies.