European Services Executives Gather at 9th Annual AFSMI Leadership Conference

AFSM International’s 9th annual S-Business Europe Services Leadership Conference was held on April 19-21 in Zurich, Switzerland, where more than 100 services industry practitioners, experts, thought leaders, Association members, and guests from the EMEA region and around the world congregated at the Renaissance Hotel. The agenda: to discuss common issues, exchange knowledge, share experiences, and address the conference theme of “Changing the Services Game Plan.”

In addition to expressing many thanks to the event sponsors in his introduction, Martin Gilday, AFSMI board member and vice president and general manager of service delivery, Global Outsourcing and Infrastructure Services, Unisys Ltd., talked about the problems facing today’s services industry, expressing his anticipation that some of these issues would be brought to better light during the conference and that resolutions would be reached through discussions and sharing of common experiences and unique approaches. Pim Bonsel, AFSMI’s executive vice president of global research, then implored the audience to consider where the industry is headed and what it should strive to achieve, encouraging attendees to ask as many questions as desired of the speakers, colleagues, and fellow practitioners and members throughout the event.

Thursday’s keynote address on IT engineering support was given by Ruedi Noser, member of Swiss Parliament, president of the Swiss Engineering Association, and founder and owner of Noser Group. Dr. Heiko Gebauer, project manager of the Institute of Technology Management, University of St. Gallen, presented on “The Extension of the Services Business: Internationalization of the Value Chain” in his keynote on Friday. And Saturday’s keynote was delivered by Dr. Luis Maria Huete, professor of IESE Business School, Madrid, with the audience considering how to respond to the uncertainties of the market and the changing nature of competition, as well as coping with individual challenges and the changing industry.

The remaining insightful and informative speakers, covering the whole gamut from politician to futurist, were delivered by: Jack van Driel (IBM advocate and paradoxiologist, IBM Benelux Technical Leader, and vice chairman, Benelux Technical Expert Council), Markus Naegeli (Canon Europe Ltd.), Ronald Berner (Siemens), Chris Farnath (Aspect Software), Al Hahn (Hahn Consulting), Jim Payne (S-Market Strategies), Steve Downton (Downton Consulting), and John Goulding (EMC Corporation). Each presentation was excellent and the topics discussed very relevant to our everyday services lives.

Discussion topics ranged from accreditation and getting technicians to leave their comfort zones, to the sheer magnitude of engineers entering the workforce (almost a million per year in India and China alone), to the definition of the way companies think and the influence this has on their success. In his discussion, Dr. Gebauer asked his audience, “Do you want to take three steps to heaven and get your service department off the ground?” igniting much audience interaction and participation. In addition, Jack van Driel captivated his audience with his poignant thoughts on the current state of affairs in the business world: People surrender to threats rather than to opportunities...brand loyalty is a dying breed...you can’t hide anything from your clients—the Internet will tell them everything they want to know...and revenue growth is only possible through innovation.