Wonder whether you all have looked up details on the Global Services Conference 2009.

The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Revisiting Global Sourcing in a Challenging Economy’. Frankly, if we were to announce a theme for this year’s conference at the previous one (as many conference organizers do), we would have been dead wrong. The economy was indeed a cause of concern even in early 2008 but its severity was still hidden from the best of economic forecasters. We even had an accomplished economist, Clyde Prestowitz, as the keynote speaker to enlighten us on how the US economic crisis could affect the global economy and business.

Here we are, this year talking about revisiting our decisions, revisiting our practices, revisiting our contracts in global sourcing. The global economic crisis has forced us to stop awhile to make a few mid-course corrections—our journey in global sourcing of services nevertheless continues on its track.

The wave of globalization is continuing unabated and the nature of its impact is changing. The evolution of globalization is now firmly entrenched in its third major stage in which the winners are being separated from the losers based on how they strategically invest in intellectual capital to transform their organizations. The clues are too important to be missed because it will determine the rules of the game and stakes of winning.  

Therefore, we decided to have a management thinker on globalization, Thomas A. Stewart, as our keynote speaker. He will deliver to us the prime messages that should form the bedrock of our decisions in the year ahead.  

The rest of the conference deals with practical and action-oriented sessions on:  a) optimizing the existing portfolio of outsourcing projects, and b) managing risks to create more value in an uncertain economic environment. Senior practitioners of outsourcing from large companies deliver many of the sessions. Key speakers include: Oliver Bussmann, CIO, AllianzLife; Scott Owen Mason, Executive Director, Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Pooneh Mohazzabi, Executive Director, UBS; and Rhonda M.Vetere, Managing Director, Barclays Capital ( earlier Lehman Brothers) amongst others. Sourcing advisors like Atul Vashistha and Eugene Kublanov from neoIT; Phil Fersht from AMR Research; Bill Bierce from Bierce & Kenerson; Linda Tuck Chapman from Ontala; and Anupam Govil from Global Equations bring in the perspectives of multitudes of clients they handle and tackle issues their clients are facing.

In summary, the conference not only addresses current issues in global sourcing borne out of economic uncertainty and supplier scenarios like the Satyam episode, but more importantly also paints the broader picture of the next phase of globalization and on creating a strategic enterprise sourcing strategy (session by Phil Fersht). Someone put it aptly, “The economy is at best a distraction, we have no choice but to live through it without losing focus on the larger goal.”

More details can be found at: www.globalservicesconference.com

Ed Nair

Editor