Asia CEO Forum Event – Manila Philippines March 16th- 7:45am at the Tower Club of Manila, 33rd floor, PhilamLife Tower, 8767 Paseo de Roxas at the corner of Ayala Avenue, Makati City, Manila).

The corporate HR function has reached a tipping point for dramatic progress because of the phenomenon known as Cloud Computing. Today’s systems offer employees immediate and 24-hour accessibility to their sensitive personal career data. For managers, detailed reporting tools that they can create on-the-fly provide fast, valuable information to radically improve their businesses. CEO’s are happiest of all because significant savings of time and money are involved ˆ the cost to run payroll can drop by 50% alone.

www.asia-ceo.org/events/NGA-Darcy_Lalonde.htm

ABPOA Event: Why and how to implement social media in your company

You will kick yourself if you miss this seminar.

Taurus Marketing, in conjunction with media partner The Sauce and the Australian Business Outsourcing Association (ABPOA) is holding the second ‘Not just another’ series of breakfast seminars on 25th March 2011 at the Observatory hotel, Kent Street Sydney. The first seminar held just before Christmas was a complete sell out.

This seminar is on ‘Why and how to implement social media in your company’ – with particular focus on business-to-business corporates. The seminar features Taurus CEO and business media personality Sharon Williams and Uber Connector and author Iggy Pintado, Director of Marketing, Sustainability and Innovation at UXC Connect.

If you thought social media was solely the realm of teenagers, think again! The largest growth area is the mid 35-50 age group, so your decision makers are on line.

Whether you like it or not, your competitors are almost certainly acquiring the knowledge and understanding the benefits of social media engagement and making a name in the digital world right now! 96% of Gen Y has already joined a social network. Brands like IBM, HP, Kodak, Sony, McDonalds, and Dell are leading the way in social media engagement and driving energetic and motivating marketing programs at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. Social media has shifted the paradigm on marketing ROI.

You can’t afford not to know how social media impacts your customers, prospects, staff, suppliers and industry influencers. And social media is not just the responsibility of the marketing, public affairs or IT department. As Board Directors, senior management or CEO’s you are accountable and you must be across the commentary that is certainly running out there in the digital universe about your products, services and staff.

Do you have an employee social media policy for example? Do you know what your staff or your customers or your competitors are saying about you on line?

You can use social media to launch new products, build your customer database, connect to intellectual property and advertise events.

This seminar is a must attend and will provide you with fast, practical ideas of what to do next.

Register for the breakfast at www.taurusmarketing.com.au – tickets are $85 ex GST and include breakfast at the exclusive Observatory Hotel, Kent Street, Sydney.

The Customer Relationship Excellence Awards 2010 (CRE) Awards has recognized many industry leaders and professionals for their customer centric service innovation. The participants have come from many international cities and business sectors in both corporate and individual categories, all demonstrating their business successes, best practices and insights on CRE.

As we witness how CRE Awards winners continue to bring new service levels, quality standards and benchmarks to shape the future directions of business practices, the organizing committee hope bring about more awareness on customer relationship excellence, to create win-win business partnership relationship excellence, and to make Asia Pacific a better place to live and do business in the region.

You may download the CRE Awards Welcome Pack 2010 for detailed information from
http://www.apcsc.com/pdf/2010CREAwardsWelcomePack.pdf

Why you should Participate or Nominate others for this prestigious award:

• The CRE Awards offer the most comprehensive assessment and respected international recognitions in Customer Relationship with international bodies and business leaders’ endorsement.
• CRE recognition increases and fortifies the corporate brand internationally
• Share experiences and learn from one another amongst the World-Class leaders and achieve the goal of market leadership.
• Better customer perception and confidence in dealing with the organisation
• Continuous improvement opportunities and benchmarking of the organisation’s Customer Service efforts through APCSC’s CRM Benchmarking program
• Far-reaching promotions and exposure of winners in the entire region through our international media channels and news coverage.

Other service excellence companies may be nominated to join the coming CRE Awards from other industries and countries.

http://www.apcsc.com/creaward/nominate.asp

The Admission deadline of CRE Awards is on 30th November, 2010.

The conversation about the realities of cloud computing took an interesting turn last week as technology vendors, customers, analysts and service providers came together at Fox Studios in Sydney to debate just how quickly the game is changing in the local market.

Developed to offer a frank and fearless environment for the honest exchange of ideas and opinions, ‘theCircle LIVE’ attracted chiefs, integrators, customers and experts from across the business spectrum. The audience included industry heavyweights such as EMC, Cisco, VMware, SAP and CSC, with the conversation moderated by respected IT journalist Mr. Mark Jones.

“Consumer-oriented cloud services have promised a lot and opened our minds to stretch what can be achieved. All our data and computer services live in the cloud and just like a utility we flick a switch and everything just works. Yet there is still much debate around how this will actually be delivered – even the very definition of ‘cloud’ is disputed,” explains Clive Gold Marketing CTO of EMC Australia and New Zealand, the world’s leading provider of information infrastructure solutions. “So theCircle LIVE presented a rare opportunity to bring some brilliant minds from the industry together with customers, in order to get a genuine conversation started.”

The big issues of the day were covered in a broad ranging debate, with experts from the health, legal and security fraternities weighing in to argue the relative merits of private vs. public cloud models. Security, privacy and compliance concerns were recurrent themes amongst the audience, with members of the health, legal and security communities weighing in.

The future of Cloud BPO was tabled by legal firm Truman Hoyle in relation to new Australian Privacy Principle 8, which will – if adopted in 2011 – require organisations storing information about Australian citizens in offshore data centres to ensure they select providers that meet Australian privacy standards in the absence of informed consent by each “affected individual.” That informed consent will have to be obtained after advising customers (or “affected individuals”) that there will be no obligation on the Australian company to take reasonable measures to ensure that the overseas provider will meet equivalent standards of privacy protection.

Absent this informed consent: “There is a specific issue for organisations using offshore operators because if an Australian company puts its consumer data – its private data – into the cloud, it has to make sure that the service provider can be shown to have an equivalent number of safeguards in place as required under the new Australian Privacy Principles,” Mark Vincent, Partner at Truman Hoyle said. “Organisations that suffer a breach can also be held strictly liable for that breach even where proper due diligence was conducted to ensure their offshore cloud provider was compliant to the required level, something that is currently not the case under the existing Privacy Principles.”

“The legal intricacies of utilising public cloud service offerings that are based offshore is just one of the many complex and important conversations that theCircle LIVE is facilitating in the market,” said EMC’s Clive Gold.

“What is clear is that when something this disruptive hits, it is vital that industry engage in open and rigorous critical thinking and debate. It is good for the industry and it’s valuable for the many customers in the market that are looking to vendors and integrators for honest answers.”

An Australian study shows how Facebook and other forms of online social networking are now “ingrained” and how, for many, their friendships have come to depend on it.

Amazingly just three per cent of respondents aged 18 to 30 do not have a Facebook profile or equivalent.

Respondents’ aged up to 80 years, who avoided all forms on online social networking, was less than 15 per cent. “It is really ingrained in our society now,” said Rebecca Mathews, a researcher at the Australian Psychological Society (APS).

The study also found that it’s not a youth-dominated activity, with 81 per cent of those aged 31 to 50, and 64 per cent of those over 50, use online social networking.

Be that as it may, the social media platforms are not standing still. On top of this, FaceBook is launching ‘FaceBook Messages’ – an application that will allow its 500 million users who send 4 billion messages across its site every day, to merge texts, online chats and emails into one central hub called a ‘Social Inbox.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “Maybe we can help push the way people do messaging more towards the simple, real time, immediate personal experience. We think this simple messaging is how people will shift their communication.”

With all of this fast moving activity, it’s hard to keep up with it all and make sense of it. This past year we have been inundated with seminars talking about Social Media. Most of them have been conducted by the advertising industry and have offered little to the debate. With over 40 per cent of Australian businesses today dipping into social media, many are still struggling to fully realise the potential opportunities and the risks it presents.

Over 50 CEOs, Managing Directors, CFOs and entrepreneurs from high profile companies such as QBE, Napoleon Perdis and Clean-Up Australia gathered in Sydney last week to learn how to implement and deliver social media effectively to meet business objectives. The ‘Not just another’ social media seminar aimed to demystify social media for business and provide practical ways forward.
 
The seminar series organised by Taurus Marketing and Beyond Digital Media.

The seminar featured three industry luminaries; Iggy Pintado (author, ‘super connector)’, Tim Molloy (MYOB online evangelist) and Sharon Williams (CEO of Taurus Marketing). The audience obtained a comprehensive overview of the social media space with a deeper understanding of how to embrace powerful tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for business.  

Earlier in the year Taurus Marketing surveyed customers, prospects and individuals and established that the top 5 challenges for business are:        

• How to turn social media activity into sales and generate leads from existing social media connections
• How can companies integrate a social media strategy in their traditional marketing mix
• How to measure the return on investment of a social media campaign
• Relevant case studies of social media successes
• How to manage online risk through social media platforms

“It is important to give people a ‘no-bull’ understanding of how social media works and to demystify how it can successfully impact their business. We are excited to launch this new series of ‘Not just another’ seminars, to take education and quality information to corporate in Australia,” remarked Sharon Williams.

NSW contact centre IT company IPscape has been recognised by the NSW Government in its technology export awards.

NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal presented IPscape with the Patrons Rising Star Award for its “effective contact centre operations.” Roozendaal said IPscape is revolutionising customer contact centre operations.

“Its online services mean companies wanting to operate call centres only need high speed broadband to access the necessary infrastructure online rather than having to invest in expensive in-house hardware, software and telecommunications,” he said. The awards coincide with a NSW Government announcement of $36 million of funding being invested in the digital economy, in an effort to create export opportunities and drive productivity.

Taurus BDM to host the “Not just another” Social Media Seminar on 12th November in Sydney, at the Observatory Hotel in Sydney.

Taurus has announced it has agreed an exclusive joint partnership with Beyond Digital Media called Taurus BDM, to cement its TaurusEngage™ strategic social media offering.

The partnership is in response to increasing demand from organisations and leaders in Australia who struggle to understand how to implement social media effectively to deliver to business objectives. Over 40% of Australian businesses1 are dipping into social media however many are still struggling to fully realise the potential opportunities and risks it presents.

Sharon Williams, CEO of Taurus comments, “We are finding with clients and new business that a greater understanding of social media is needed to deliver strategies which show a real return on investment. We see a gap in the market to deliver effective, tactical social media strategies that cut through the jargon. This partnership allows us to give our clients an extended social media offering to compliment our award winning communications expertise. The Beyond Digital Media team’s core values are in perfect synergy with our ‘No Bull’ brand.”

Chris Bishops, Head of Digital Strategy at Beyond Digital comments. “By working with Taurus we add further firepower to our marketing offering which already boasts the experience of people like Iggy Pintado. With our strong digital expertise we are able to close the gap that exists within many organisations between marketing and technology. Our partnership with Taurus creates a unique entity able to deliver relevant strategy, training, advice and creative solutions to make social media a powerful tool for tangible business solutions.

TaurusEngage™ was launched over 12 months ago and has already developed and implemented successful social media strategies for clients such as Bible Society NSW, winning the PRIA and AMI State award recently as well as servicing individuals such as Emanuel Perdis, Managing Director of Napoleon Perdis.

The Beyond Digital Media team consists of marketing, digital and social media experts, including Iggy Pintado, Heidi Allen and Chris Bishops.

Taurus BDM will be holding a social media seminar ‘Demystifying the use of social media in business’ at The Observatory Hotel, Sydney on Friday 12th November. Iggy Pintado (Author ‘Super-connector’ and marketing specialist) and Tim Molloy (MYOB evangelist online) will be key note speakers.
If you would like to attend please contact rachel@taurusmarketing.com.au

Outsourcing Malaysia (OM) will focus on an export promotion strategy that includes regional cross border partnerships to spur the local outsourcing industry and help it to achieve its targeted 15% growth. The Malaysian outsourcing industry generated revenue of USD1.1 billion last year.

Malaysia’s strong talent pool and other advantages have placed it among the top three Shared Services Outsourcing (SSO) destinations in the world.

Quoting this from a study by global management consulting firm AT Kearney, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said, “Thanks to Malaysia’s multi-cultural environment, the ranking enables the country to offer multiple language skills and a high-value workforce capable of interacting as well as meeting the needs of customers across the globe.”

He said there were almost 140 foreign and 60 local companies in the country now performing various SSO activities, ranging from IT and business process outsourcing to knowledge process outsourcing.
OM’s export strategy is in line to increase the competitiveness of Malaysian outsourcing companies and to tap the industry’s enormous untapped potential.

Its Chairman David Wong told reporters at a media briefing that OM believes that cross border collaboration is a key driver to elevate local players’ competencies and to help them become global service providers. OM had recently organised a successful business mission to Australia to facilitate partnerships between Malaysian and Australian IT and business solutions providers where over US$100 million worth of collaboration opportunities were identified.

It was the first business mission to Australia for OM. Response towards the seminars, round-table discussions and B2B meetings in Sydney and Melbourne revealed the genuine willingness and openness of Australian companies to explore partnership opportunities with industry counterparts in Malaysia.

According to Mr Wong, among the factors which contributed to the success of its Australian mission were Malaysia’s strengths in specific industry verticals and the country’s proximity to the Middle East countries.“ Australian companies recognise our competitive edge in the areas of Contact Centre Operation & Services, Enterprise Resource Planning, HR and Finance & Accounting Outsourcing and our close location to the growing Middle East markets is also a strong plus point.

“Our positioning of Malaysia as a gateway to the larger ASEAN region is also another compelling reason for Australian companies to consider partnering us, while for Malaysian companies, we can leverage Australia’s respected global brand. Together, we will be able to collectively target markets beyond the two countries,” Mr Wong said, adding that collaboration is crucial to create appealing solutions in today’s commodity marketplace.

He added, “OM plans to organise follow-up visits to Sydney and Melbourne within the next year and is also targeting similar missions to other countries such as America, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Dubai over the next 24 months following the encouraging results achieved from the ‘smart partnership model’ concept initiated for Australia.”

OM also recently launched its newly revamped website (www.outsourcingmalaysia.org.my) as part of its strategy to make it easier for the global market to access the local shared services and outsourcing capabilities that are available in the country.

Outsourcing Malaysia is organising the Smart Sourcing Summit 2010 (SSS2010) in December 8 -10 under the theme “Uncertainty in a post- crisis world – doing more with less”.

About Outsourcing Malaysia
Outsourcing Malaysia is an initiative of the Malaysian outsourcing industry and a chapter of PIKOM (the National ICT Association of Malaysia). With the support from its partners such as the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and senior leaders from the global services industry, the outsourcing consortium aims to promote the capabilities and competencies of the Malaysian outsourcing industry.