According to Hydrasights, the top 10% of Asia Pacific IT organizations will embrace ITSM best practices to improve IT compliance, IT governance and IT performance in 2008. They will increasingly utilize a continuous improvement approach to aligning both business and IT processes to make the potential for sustainable IT process automation a reality in 2010. These trends are not confined to projections and surveys; simple observation on the number of new local itSMF chapters in Asia springing up and their increasing rate of membership growth is a strong collaboration indicating Asia’s better run businesses are sold on and investing in service management practices. However Asia’s ITSM space is both fragmented and at different stages of maturity. Each country holds a treasure trove of experience and business opportunity that is largely unavailable to others outside their national borders. What has been missing until now, has been a common platform for bringing the region together to obtain the critical mass necessary to energize the industry. But why should this need be more apparent today?
In the wake of the US Presidential elections, we are served a sobering reminder: that isolation is suicide. It’s not that presidential candidates have a shortage of avenues in which to reach out to voters owing to multimillion dollar campaign war chests – they are connected to the world through the internet with political websites, webcast debates, podcasts, blogs; traditional mass media TV, radio and print; endorsements and other creative communication mediums. Instead, we observe that candidates time and time again fall back on the only one certainty in connecting with the nation’s voters… to go on the campaign trail. Yes, it’s back to the good old fashion strategy of ‘shaking hands and kissing babies’. Neither of which can be done from the comfort of the armchair. It just has to be done in person. Nothing translates more sincerity and commitment to your partners and clients than a face-to-face appearance. Proxies not appreciated.
The parallel takeaway for busy IT executives is that to remain plugged in to the industry, ironically the best practice method of making an impression, getting a knowledge update and securing new contracts and deals is that one is required to unplug from the office. Culturally, conferencing is a difficult shift in mindset for Asians. Yet we all know securing an audience with the industry’s movers-and-shakers requires a lot of hard work and often results in rejection. Access is not assured. And the difficulty is multiplied when dealing with out-of-country meetings with their associated costs for travel and time. There has to be a better way to learn from the best and to strike up business opportunities with them.
Last November, a historic event took place in Singapore. The first ever itSMF Asia Summit 2007 brought together senior-level attendees from 92 distinct companies spanning 17 countries. The itSMF Singapore chapter realized this need for the industry to come together and acted upon it. The itSMF SG council came to the conclusion that the only way to professionalize the annual conference and to re-incarnate it as a regional show would be to transform it to a paid event managed by a commercial partner that is equally committed to the goals of the forum. To that end, itSMF SG sought out and brokered a strategic partnership with the leading B2B executive conference company, Terrapinn. The vision to raise the bar for every aspect of the conference, from the quality of speakers, delegate experience and rich learning content was developed jointly but with realistic expectations of building this reputation over several years. What was deemed crucial to its success was the discipline to wrestle control of speaking neutrality, and to maintain a strict end-user biased approach to the contribution and attendance ratio. This short-term policy, though painful, would eventually bear fruit for all members in the ecosystem including solution houses and independent consultants who would experience the benefits of such a platform in time to come.
The inaugural event in 2007 already saw an increase on several key KPIs (based on 2006 and 2007 comparisons):
- An increase in speaker offerings by 70% from 17 to 19 which included 4 keynotes (i.e. two ITIL v3 authors and two high-level end-user presenters)
- An increase in international attendee representation from 7% to 62%
- An increase in attendee end-user composition up from 41% to 71%
- An increase in attendee satisfaction scoring from 14% to 54% in the “Excellent/
- An increase in value-added networking activities up from 1 to 6 unique events
- An increase in the profitability of the event – allowing the chapter to finance other local activities and to invest more in building up the value behind a better financed Asia event
These early wins served as a boost of confidence to the council and more has been pledged to invest in the 2008 event to create a better show to tackle cross-border issues. The real value behind this regional event would be to ensure positioning of the event does not replicate the objectives of national level conferences. This also includes feeding in new prospects to the forum and providing opportunities for itSMF members to meet not only their peers from neighboring chapters, but also people outside the association. Herein Terrapinn’s expertise in list building and contact database acquisition is key to keeping the year-to-year attendee composition fresh and alive from the perspective of improving delegate connectivity and reach in the market.
The 2007 event featured a host of industry luminaries as our distinguished speaker panel. 2008 promises to build on the momentum achieved and raise the bar further with a two-day event sporting two half-day tracks in four distinct areas of interest: strategy; risk, audit and compliance; outsourcing;
Selected Speaker Highlights at itSMF Asia Summit 2007
- Majid Iqbal, Co-Author of ITIL v3 Service Strategy
- Gary Case, Co-Author, ITIL v3 Continual Service Improvement
- Dr Charles Ling, Singapore Exchange
- Foo Nian Chou, National Computer Systems, Singapore
- Simon Chang, Acer Incorporated, Taiwan
- Isis O, PCCW Solutions, Hong Kong
- Padmashree Rao, Perot Systems, India
- Sushil Chatterji, IT Governance Committee, ISACA hq/ITGI, Singapore
- Alison Holt, ISO/IEC ICT Governance Study Group
- Tricia Olsen, ICSP, Australia
For more information on the itSMF Asia Summit 2008 to be held in Singapore, 13 – 15 October, visit the event site at http://www.terrapinn.com/
