What We Learned From the ChinaSourcing Summit 2014

Shinetech Software recently attended the ChinaSourcing Summit 2014 in Hangzhou, China. The theme of this event was “Digital Times: Marketing Without Boundary, Service Without Limit.” There were industry-focused seminars covering popular topics such as tech-integration and service innovation, manufacturing servitization, financial services, cross-border e-commerce, outsourcing talent training, telecommunication services and more. Guest speakers included Gartner analysts, top executives from companies like Telstra, eBay and Huawei, and representatives from global service providers.

The first day of the summit included a release ceremony for the Report on China’s Leading Service Providers and Growing Services Providers 2014. Shinetech was nominated as one of the top 100 Growing Services Providers for this year. Nominees are selected by the China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP) and well-known international consulting firms, including Gartner and IDC, based on their evaluation of the companies and financial indicators such as total revenue, revenue from outsourcing services and revenue growth.

Outsourcing Industry Dialogue

A panel discussion moderated by Gartner Research VP Jim Longwood provided some interesting viewpoints. Insight from both the buyer and service provider points of view were expressed. Both sides shared a common important theme of close collaboration. For example, on the customer side, there is a need to work on the visions and prototypes collaboratively. The vendor side expressed the need to be responsive and provide expert services in order to deliver the solutions for their clients.

Knowing the customer and understanding which methodology fits best is key.  Service delivery efficiency and a certain level of industrialization is expected from the provider, so this also drives discussion on new types of business models.

Keynote Speech on Digitalization

Bard Papegaaij from Gartner shared some of the findings from this year’s CIO Survey. The report addresses the question: How are leading CIOs adapting to the additional challenges that evolving digital world represents? More than half agreed that an increase in digital disruption makes it difficult for IT and businesses to keep up and have adequate response times.

The industry is in transition – it’s a whole new era of IT, moving from IT industrialization to digital. Papegaaij reminded the audience that digital is not just “online,” but also should be seen as the creative source for business development. He also made an interesting point about “Renovating the Core,” meaning the growing need to maintain and update the back-office systems like ERP to meet the needs of new business. In the past, it’s been quite monolithic and process-oriented, but should be modularized and connected to digital to better analyze all the data and be used as an asset.  For IT and software delivery models, this means we are not just moving from Waterfall methodology to Agile, but already to Lean and even Lean startup.

Want to know more about what we learned? Leave a comment below!