And We are Out! Joint Poolside Reception

The closing poolside reception provided the perfect atmosphere where attendees from both conferences came together to reconvene, compare notes, share experiences, and further ground connections that were made during their respective events.

Thanks for being with us in Santa Clara! This co-hosted services event was a great learning and networking experience. On behalf of SSPA and TPSA staff, We thank you and wish you much success throughout the remainder of 2008. We will see you in Vegas this October!

Joint Closing Keynotes

Thomas Lah of TPSA and Steve Smith of SSPA held the final keynote presentation of the conference on “Surviving Service Convergence,” following the final conference breakouts. They presented to services executives from both conference events.

Successfully Measuring the Economic Impact of Professional Services

Our third keynote of the morning was delivered by Charley Dublin, Senior Director of Professional Services at Akamai Technologies. Charley did a deep dive into the ground-breaking work that Akamai Technologies has done within the past year on their success in measuring the economic impact of Professional Services. He then explored the fundamental business dynamics related to PS that cause the need for EIA models. From this context, he then built out a general framework to develop various valuation methods and included basic comparison methods as well as more advanced methods that leverage basic statistical approaches. Finally, Charley closed the presentation by reviewing best practices to gain acceptance of EIA methods with executive teams. And that ends the final day of three more insighful and informative keynotes! We are now looking forward to the morning and afternoon TPSA track sessions!

Innovating the Service Development Life Cycle

Our second keynote for Tuesday morning was delivered by Madan Gadde, Sr. Director of Professional Services, HP Software with their approach on improving the Service Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Madan started by outlining concepts such as the growing gap between customer demands and ability to execute, strategic and operational business drivers, and packaged service offerings. He then moved into detail with regards to the HP Software go-to-market (GTM) strategy, aligning components of the service offering, financial models and a framework for managing the services portfolio. Finally, Madan closed his presentation by putting the business model, implementation plan, and elements of execution together in combination with the appropriate controls and measures to optimize the SDLC.

Service Productization vs. Service Content by Nicolas Steib

After a fun evening where members joined one another in small cohorts for dinner and drinks, we're back to business Tuesday morning at the TPSA Summit in Santa Clara, CA. Nicolas Steib, Global Head of Field Services Hubs, SAP began the morning by introducing attendees to the concept of SAP hubs - the cornerstone of SAP's efforts to increase speed to market, secure and accelerate delivery capabilities, and exchange knowledge. He then went on to discuss two distinct approaches to service innovation by focusing on fulfillment and embedding service content into the product. Nicolas wrapped up his presentation with lessons learned such as focusing energy around a strong vision, gaining traction, and then relentlessly managing change to execute that vision. Next up, Madan Gadde from HP Software...

TPSA Attendees Network with Peers

Attendees catch up, create new contacts and network with colleagues in between tracks. Tracks in the morning included Service Delivery, Service Engineering, Service Marketing and a Co-presented Partner Case Study. In the afternoon, they were able to attend tracks that included Partner Management, Service Operations and Service Sales. As our sessions closed for the day, attendees head to the Technology Services Expo for the closing reception.

Service Marketing Track at the TPSA Summit

The Monday, May 4th Service Marketing track at the TPSA Summit consisted of two presentations and were a big hit! We first heard from Jennifer Chang, Oracle Consulting- North America Strategic Programs, Oracle. Her topic of choice, and one that sparked a great deal of interest and interaction was Integrate Professional Services Development and Marketing into Your Sales Strategy. She chose to highlight the integration between marketing and both the upstream development of service offerings and the downstream demand-generation processes.
Our next presenters were both from Teradata, the world's leader in data warehousing. They were Lance Miller, Assistant Vice President of Global Services Marketing and Paul Barsch, Marketing Director. Lance and Paul presented a Teradata case study on The Power of Integtrated Marketing Campaigns. They discussed how Teradata's Professional Services marketing team embarked upon a comprehensive services marketing campaign to build internal and external awareness of the Performance offers.
Both of these presentations were very insightful and informative.

The Next Generation Data Center by Alan Wilson

Alan Wilson rounded out our group of Monday morning keynote presenters, diving right into his presentation into Sun's vision of the next generation data center. Alan started with the concept that "the network is the computer" and the individual components driving infrastructure demand, introduced overall growth trends for data centers, general business issues such as utilization, space utilization, and energy costs, and how to get started to increase data center efficiency. What are your company's current data center initiatives and how do they reflect your services strategies such as providing managed services and supporting trends such as Software as a Service (SaaS)? After a break for lunch and presentations in the technology services expo, we'll return to blog on the Monday afternoon breakout sessions for service delivery, engineering, and marketing.

Jeff Bane's Take on Xerox Services Centers of Excellence

Shortly after Thomas' opening keynote presentation on The Package Paradox, Jeff Bane took the general session stage to discuss three cases where the Xerox Services Center of Excellence (COE) brings value to Xerox Global Services (XGS). Lessons learned included identification of the appropriate subject matter experts (SMEs) to accelerate response to RFPs, applying best practices from other regions and customers into new common standards, and enabling account management teams the tools and information to drive gross profit improvements. In order to apply these lessons at XGS, they underwent a major account services delivery transformation with clear short and long-term objectives such as providing delivery executive coverage for its largest services customers, decreasing time to revenue / time to profit, and transparent accountability measures. In closing, Jeff introduced the structural alignment of the COE, details and measurements for success, and why XGS decided to make the investments into the COE at this time in its services business.

Thomas Lah's Opening Keynote Address

TPSA Executive Director Thomas Lah opened Monday morning of the Summit with his keynote address and went right to the current state of the industry with "The Package Paradox". Thomas went right to the punch with an audience survey of attendees whose companies currently use industry buzzwords such as "consultative approach", "solutions provider", and "trusted advisor" compared to an eye-opening list of web-search results for each of these terms pointing to the current momentum in technology services.

Thomas then moved on to discuss seven metrics that matter in order to measure the effectiveness of consultative technology services. After laying the groundwork for the current state of the industry he then transitioned into The Package Paradox referring to the conflict between current optimization levers for technology services businesses and the changing trends of the industry.

Thomas then moved on to discuss the dynamics of change, specifically including overcoming company inertia and the forces of change such as the shift in product-service mix, revenue, and labor margins. Finally, Thomas closed with the target state of the industry moving from stove pipes of independent service offerings to embedded package services, also including the potential convergence of products, support and managed services, and professional and technical services.

As you listened to his presentation what were your thoughts or comments about his presentation? Or, if you're keeping in touch with the Summit remotely and have questions feel free to post them to keep in touch with the presenters and attendees to experience the Summit virtually.

Technology Services Expo Kicks Off the Event!

Good morning from Santa Clara and welcome to the May TPSA Summit event blog! The Summit kicked off yesterday evening at 5:30 PM with our technology services expo featuring almost 40 technology services partners from across the industry. The expo served as the ideal venue for repeat attendees to get back in touch with one another and for first time attendees to meet peers from other member companies after traveling into Santa Clara from locations all across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Tech expo partners introduced and explained a wide variety of offerings including remote services technologies, text mining, customer satisfaction and loyalty programs, analytics, service and sales training, CRM, online communities, PSA systems, and more. After spending a couple of hours together enjoying good company accompanied with appetizers and happy hour a number of our more adventurous attendees ventured out into downtown San Jose to brave the Cinco de Mayo crowds for dinner, while a number of others returned to recharge and be ready to go for breakfast and our opening keynote address. Feel free to post your comments and questions about the tech expo, and we'll be back to comment after Thomas Lah's opening address...