Latinia, a company that develops infrastructure software, has just received the Level 2 CMMI certification, an international Standard that measures the maturity and quality of software processes in an organization, and which is granted by Carnegie-Mellon University on behalf of the SEI (Software Engineering Institute, a research and development center sponsored by the United States Department of Defense). “The certificate directly benefits our entire environment,” says Marc Alcón, technical manager at the Catalan software firm. “It benefits our customers because it provides an objective guarantee of on-time performance as well as the quality of the software we produce and deliver, and it benefits Latinia, because it enables us to increase our competitiveness and add value, both at the national level, and above all, because of the moment of expansion the company is now experiencing, at the international level.”
CMMI is a model for evaluation and permanent process improvement for the development, maintenance and operation of software products and systems, endowing certified companies “with a seal of maximum prestige as vendors,” notes Alcón. “It classifies companies into levels of maturity through a method geared towards continuing improvement of development and maintenance processes, generating a dynamic of permanent improvement of the product and of the company’s competencies as a software vendor”. Latinia has arrived at level 2.
The latest report published by the SEI shows that there are 155 organizations in Spain with CMMI certification (one at level 4, and four at level 5, all of them large corporations). Based on this information, Spain is ranked in first place in Europe, ahead of France, which until now held the position of leadership in Europe. In the entire world, out of the nearly 4,000 companies – 73% of which are not American – that hold the certificate, only 15% have fewer than 25 employees, which simply enhances the merit of the certificate awarded to Latinia.
“The leap upward in terms of quality and prestige for the company and for the professionals who work here is highly significant, both internally as well as externally; Level 2 of the CMMI focuses on areas such as planning, management of requirements, metrics, or process verification and validation; thus in addition to strengthening internal efficiency, it allows the customer to see one of their main concerns fully addressed, which is that the projects and products purchased will be delivered on the basis of planning, generating cost savings at both ends of the chain. The fact that the vendor has the capacity to make estimations and stay visible in the management of its projects ensures that they will be executed and supervised with maximum efficiency, thanks to constant oversight and ongoing quality assurance in the engineering cycles and processes that go into the product up until its final delivery,” states Alcón.
“Competing in global markets, and meeting the requirements of doing so in the financial sector, means that you have to be endowed with maximum assets and skills, and in this sense, the CMMI certificate gives the company one more competitive edge among international suppliers, which are usually larger, allowing us to compete one on one,” he concludes.
