Business India - December 22, 2004.

Quality and compliance is the next big thing globally. And with the growth in bio/pharma sectors in India what the industry today needs looking at trends that are going to drive quality and compliance, especially in the light of increased regulation, outsourcing and cost focus. Gunjan Sinha, chairman of the US based MetricStream Inc., a player in quality and compliance management, says, "The time has come for Indian companies to look forward to enterprise-wide quality and compliance market." Recently MetricStream released a product suite MetricStream 3.5 in the Indian market that automates quality and compliance processes through various modules that have an inbuilt mechanism to protect brand image and market share by ensuring consistent quality of products and services; enable earlier detection and faster response to adverse events through management dash-boards, etc; and reduce material costs and ensure compliance with quality and safety regulations, and reduce costs of regulatory compliance, through automation of quality management tasks. "Also," adds Sinha, "as the entire key product and application development is being done at the company's Bangalore centre, the availability of MetricStream products is easy to Indian customers who have now started appreciating the quality and compliance aspect of their businesses."