*For those who attended the session today, as discussed, please feel to add comments below to further the debate*
BAG Open Space Event – How can we grab senior management attention and sell the Quality message
Tuesday 29th November 2011
Facilitator, Jim Wade, The Business Improvement Network
An Open Space gathering organised on behalf of Intellect’s Business Assurance Group by The Business Improvement Network (www.bin.co.uk)
Take a look at any newspaper on any given day at the moment and the narrative focuses on economic matters, more specifically the uncertainty in Western European countries. Markets are dominating the political landscape with profound effect as both Greece and Italy take drastic action and draft in sober-looking technocrats to steady the tiller. Nevertheless, uncertainty remains and the prospect of the dreaded “double-dip” looms large. So how is this affecting the Outsourcing industry?
According to the outsourcing analysts HfS Research, over 40% of corporate IT leaders surveyed in their recent analysis said that a double-dip recession would lead to increased outsourcing. (more…)
Last night’s Stuff 2011 Awards caused a little bit of a stir in the mainstream press this morning. Apple iPad2 missed out on the headline prize of Gadget of the year making way for the more alternative Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Cynics might say this was a cunning ploy to promote the event, I’ll reserve judgement. However for me, the more significant story of the evening was the winner of the Innovation of the Year, deservedly awarded to OnLive.
For those of you who don’t know, OnLive is the cloud based video game service. It is undoubtedly a game changer for the traditional console market. All you need is your controller, screen and a good broadband connection. You buy your games like you buy your apps on your smartphone, instantly. The service was launched in the UK in September and is expected to experience rapid growth. An interesting question that struck me was how the growth of Cloud services in the fun private consumer sphere can affect its takeup in the Corporate world?
In the business world, Cloud Computing is still the hot topic of the day and Intellect will be addressing the current state of play at our Cloud conference on the 22nd November. However, there are still considerable barriers to adoption in the business world, often with decision makers and CIOs not wanting to take a risk on something new.
In terms of the name itself, Cloud has not been used as much in terms of naming of services. Does the average Gmail user appreciate they are using Software as a Service? Probably not. Whereas in the business world, Cloud is much more ubiquitous. My prediction is that the presence of companies such as OnLive and the success of features such as iCloud on the new iPhone 4S will win people over to cloud-based services in general. In other words, it will become socialised, accepted and legitimised.
Those who have been involved with Intellect for a long time know that we are very broad church. We have experience and expertise in many different sectors and policy areas. Members can often find the sheer wealth of content overwhelming. However, I thought it worth mentioning the unique perspective offered by the ICON’s IT Giant’s series as something not to miss out on. (more…)
On the 14 September, Intellect’s Outsourcing & Offshore Group hosted the second joint conference of the year on Collaborative Working and Outcome Based Agreements with the National Outsourcing Association. This event followed on from the previous event in May in Manchester. We had both supplier and client perspectives as the central part of the approach. Then, speakers from legal, standards and consulting approaches gave weight and analysis to the relationship. (more…)