EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Speaking at the Fourth Annual World BPO/ITO Forum 2011 in New York, iRise® CEO and Co-founder Emmet B. Keeffe III led the charge for a new strategic approach among CIOs operating in a global sourcing environment. Among his admonitions was the need for better collaboration between CIOs and their business counterparts, as well as transformational IT from a strategy, process and tools perspective.
Keeffe’s presentation, entitled “Innovate or Die: How Transformational Thinking Drives Business Success”, was a focal point of the forum held June 28-29 at Hyatt Regency on the Hudson. The World BPO/ITO Forum, attended by more than 250 C-level executives from around the world, is the premier thought-leadership event for the sharing of best practices related to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO).
A summary report of the conference, to be produced in partnership with Oxford Economics, will be made available in early September. Video highlights from the conference can be found on the World BPO Forum website, www.worldbpoforum.com.
Headlining the keynote speakers at the forum was renowned economist Dr. Lawrence Summers, former director of the White House National Economic Council under Barack Obama. Summers, who served as president of Harvard University from 2001-2006, said in his speech that global sourcing is a key to economic success.
“There are those today who would resist the process of international integration; that is a prescription for a more contentious and less prosperous world,” stated Summers. “We should not oppose offshoring or outsourcing.”
Over 20 individual sessions were featured at the two-day conference. Topics included leveraging cloud computing and mobility, unlocking innovation, structuring winning SLAs, managing risk, and the economic and social impact of global sourcing. In addition to Keeffe and Summers, others speakers included:
- Dana Deasy, Group CIO and Group Vice President, BP
- John Lutz, General Manager of Global Process Services, IBM
- Patrick Weir , Lead Solution Director for Engineering BPO Services, Accenture
- Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman’s Council, NASSCOM
- Chris Kaisand, Managing Director, TD Ameritrade
- Sushma Rajagopalan, Head of Global Strategy and Business Process Services, L&T Infotech
Keeffe, a member of the World BPO Forum’s Executive Steering Committee, was joined in his discussion by Hossein Eslambolchi, Chairman, 2020 Venture Partners; Bill Mitchell, Director of Global Platform Services for Deutsche Bank and former CIO of Warner Music International; Eric Ranta, National Vice President of Value Engineering for SAP North America; and Roxanna Wall, Executive Director of Group Outsourcing & Offshoring for UBS AG.
“Global Sourcing has become a transformational lever that can empower businesses to take on new competition. This exclusive Forum provided opportunities to interact, learn and share issues, challenges and solutions from some of the world’s leading thought leaders on the economic, political and technical impact of Global Sourcing,” stated Jim Noble, Chairman, World BPO/ITO Forum & Senior VP, Talisman Energy.
As an indication of how important outsourcing and offshoring has become, the summit was attended by the current leading offshore country delegations (India and the Philippines), delegates from near-shoring destinations such as Brazil and Argentina, and representatives from emerging offshore destinations such as Malaysia, Poland, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“This is a clear indication that the concept of ‘global delivery centers’ is rapidly becoming the norm,” said Kartik Kilachand, CEO and Co-founder of the World BPO Forum Inc. Some of the world’s most influential firms and organizations also were represented, including Deutsche Bank, SAP, Coca-Cola, NASA, and Morgan Stanley.
iRise was a platinum sponsor of World BPO/ITO Forum 2011.
About The World BPO/ITO Forum, Inc.
The World BPO/ITO Forum conference is in its fourth year, and getting close to its aspirations to become the "Davos" of off-shoring. The conference offers a "one stop shop" for executives at mid- to large-sized companies (CIOs, CFOs, COOs) to hear from speakers who can offer best practices in global sourcing, and to meet with representatives from service providers from many (low cost) countries. The conference further promotes the transformational possibilities of the synergies between BPO and ITO.
About iRise
iRise is the world leader in software visualization/design solutions that are changing the way enterprise applications are created. Its visualization software reduces or altogether eliminates the written requirements that clog and complicate effective communication. Instead, business analysts can now collaborate side-by-side with business people and developers, building working models that enable all stakeholders to experience, the look, feel and behavior of applications before coding begins. iRise is dramatically shortening the development cycle and saving tens of millions of dollars for major companies including Chase, FedEx, General Motors, Manpower, UPS and hundreds of others. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, iRise is backed by Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, and has sales offices across North America and in London. Visit www.irise.com.
iRise is a registered trademark of iRise. All other companies and products mentioned are trademarks and property of their respective owners.