Infosys BPO has launched its Process Progression Model (PPM), a framework aimed at assessing current process maturity and providing a roadmap for process transformation. In particular, PPM acts a high level dashboard and common reference model for communicating with clients.

Infosys PPM has been in active use with Infosys BPO clients for approximately 6 months, succeeding the company's "Business Value Realization" methodology and following in the footsteps of Genpact's SEP, TCS' FORE, HP's Framework for Innovation & Transformation (FIT), Capgemini's Global Enterprise Model, IBM's EPIC, Wipro's Business Value Meter, and Xerox Services' RACE.

Within the PPM approach, the maturity of engagements are judged as P0, P1, P2, or P3 with Infosys seeking to move clients from P1 to P2 within 12 months and from P2 to P3 within a further 24 months. The PPM model has three broad levels of maturity attainment:

• P1: "Noiseless operations", characterized by performance to SLAs, deployment of skilled resource, existence of process documentation and training, and secure operations on stable technology
• P2: "Process excellence", characterized by existence of a process champion program and supporting continuous improvement programs
• P3: "Business outcomes", characterized by use of a business dashboard, measurement of business value delivery, and a focus on end process transformation.

For a given "end-to-end" process, maturity is measured against five "themes":

• Service delivery
• People
• Knowledge management
• Technology
• Risk and Compliance.

Within each of these themes are multiple assessment criteria, which can be red, amber, or green. So for example, in order to achieve P2 maturity within "service delivery", each of the assessment criteria within "service delivery" must have green status. The status of each assessment criterion is initially judged by Infosys personnel and this assessment shared with the client to achieve consensus. Focus areas for improvement are monitored every month or quarter, with revalidation of the overall process assessment every 12 months.

Accordingly, PPM is a key high-level dashboard for communication and discussion between the client and Infosys and is displayed to Infosys project teams on the floors of delivery centers. Infosys is aiming to use PPM to judge processes on an "end-to-end" basis across both client-operated and Infosys-operated processes and establish a common reference model for assessing process maturity and identifying future process transformation. In an ideal world, the client needs to be actively involved to change upstream or downstream client operations that are impacting overall business value. Indeed Infosys appears to have attained this goal with Philips, with the client embracing dual accountability and giving Infosys responsibility for identifying improvement projects across end-to-end processes.

However, in practice many clients will prefer instead to constrain the application of PPM to vendor-operated processes alone. This is one of the main challenges for the PPM approach and one that could ultimately limit the level of business value that can be achieved by individual clients. The success of PPM will ultimately depend on whether Infosys can persuade clients to adopt PPM to measure their parts of the value chain and not just Infosys-operated processes.