"Services without Boundaries"

JB Wood, CEO of AFSMI, SSPA and TPSA, kicked off the event with a session called "Services without Boundaries" noting that technology solution providers survived the beginning of the global downturn relatively unscathed. In 2008, top line revenues held and bottom line profits, on average, improved for hardware, software, and services providers. However, 2009 is proving a very different experience.

JB talked about how companies can begin breaking down organizational, financial and geographic barriers to maximize services success.” He started with a review of public and proprietary industry data that shows three distinct trends impacting technology providers in 2009:

• Product revenues and margins are clearly under pressure.
• With a decrease in product revenues, services revenues are becoming a larger percentage of overall company revenues.
• There is immense pressure on services organizations to secure revenues and improve profitability.

Unfortunately, there is little or no money to invest in traditional business optimization tactics that drive incremental improvements. Services organizations must identify tactics that create step function improvements in profitability.


The presentation then turned to an important framework that services organizations can apply to identify opportunities in both organizational and offering convergence that break down existing barriers in services delivery. Organizational convergence creates leverage between the historically stove piped services lines within product companies. Offering convergence changes the way customers consume technology solutions. Together, these approaches create new models for developing, selling, and delivering technology services to customers with ever tightening budgets.

JB ended the presentation with a roadmap for horizon 1, 2, and 3 activities that services organizations can pursue to start navigating these challenging times.