The Global IT Outsourcing Summit, in its 5 consecutive sessions, aims to provide a platform for local and international software companies to share experiences and realize cooperation. The summit consists of professional forums, project meetings and exhibitions, which can inform participants of the latest trend, truly authoritative forecast, cutting-edge ideas, latest policies, case studies, and outsourcing projects of the industry.
Though postponed by the SARS epidemic, the first Summit was launched in 2003, the 1st of its kind in China. It was also broadcasted online through WebEx system, demonstrating the city's pledge and favorable environment to support the development of software outsourcing. The 2nd Summit, in 2004, focused on the theme of "Software Outsourcing in China". Case studies and international cooperation models were discussed in the Summit to encouraged the role of overseas government offices in the establishment of business network for outsourcing. The 3rd summit was held in 2005 and focused on “Cooperatively and Interactively Building Software Outsourcing Platform in the East China--Yangtze River Delta”, discussing outsourcing values and strengthening services to the Yangtze River Delta. The 4th Summit talked mainly about the “Software HR”, the status quo and how to enable effective communication between software schools and software companies, thus coming up with a market-oriented interaction between education and training. The 5th summit was themed by Quality & HR, Being International and Sharing with the world. This session talked about international certification, information security and exchange rate risks, and explored strategies in developing software outsourcing. Each of the 5 sessions has one theme or feature that served the need of software companies, and thus attracted representatives from more than 10 countries or regions and from different provinces and cities in China. Forums, dialogs and match-making meetings were crowded and were frequently extended for extra hours.
Vice Mayor Yan Junqi, Vice Mayor Zhou Yupeng and Vice Mayor Tang Dengjie were invited to address the openings.Mr. Zhu Xiaoming, Vice Chairman of The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Shanghai Committee, and Mr. Wang Xinkui, President of the Shanghai Federation of Industry and Commerce were our guest speakers. Officials from Shanghai Foreign Economic Relations & Trade Commission and the Shanghai Information Commission gave presentations about the outsourcing service for software export and the development of the software industry. Key officials from Shanghai Copyright Bureau gave a special presentation on IPR protection. Officials from relevant government authorities set up Q&A desks in the exhibition.
Senior executives also came to the Summit and made presentations about outsourcing, including those from Microsoft Global R & D Center, Microsoft (China), Microsoft Asia Research Institute, Oracle, EMC, US Asia Financial Investment Group, NEC, NTT DATA, FUJITSU, Nomura Research Institute, German SAP (China) Research Institute, NOKIA, Korea Software Industry Association, UMTP International, IEEE, and International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, etc.
The business demand has always been the focus of the Summit. "East China-Yangtze River Delta Cooperative Alliance for Software Industry" was launched in the 3 summit in response to the proposal by various software associations and software parks. There were free booths for software companies. There were also corporate forums and investment & fund-raising meetings, etc, attracting more than 100 industrial professionals every time. The Summit has awarded 5 foreign outsourcers the "Gold Lily" Prize. Winners expressed their satisfaction in cooperating with domestic counterparts. One winner promised additional outsourcing projects in Shanghai. Representatives applauded the prize as a win-win approach.
The Summit aims to demonstrate various dimensions of the local software industry and the information service outsourcing. The parallel software exhibition was expanding gradually. There were 108 booths from more than 160 software companies in the 2nd Summit, among whom there were more than 60 foreign exhibitors. The focus was on the core software technology, outsourcing projects, products with independent intellectual property and innovative products. Activities such as exchanges & negotiations among industrial professionals and visits to software parks and schools were organized. Particularly, the summit published "Studies on the competence of Shanghai's Software Industry" and "Regulation on Pricing Behavior of Software Companies". The "List of Shanghai Software Companies" was also printed during the Summit.
The summit created opportunities for interactions between software industry and education community. Every year, experts from software schools were invited. The 4th and 5th Summit awarded software companies for training base of software HR. Mr. Yuan Yue, well known TV program anchor, hosted "Brain Storm" attended by executives from schools and companies to discuss the "Development of Software HR". The "Brain Storm" was inspiring and warmly welcome.
The summit became more popular and more people registered every year. One representative commented, “The Summit is making progress every year, it's inspiring and focuses on what we need.
The Global IT Outsourcing Summit, for 5 years, contributed significantly to the development of Shanghai's software export and the software industry, laid a solid foundation for the local software industry to go global and was positively reported by the media. Up to now, there are 1372 certified software companies with more than 200 thousand employees. 83 of them have achieved an annual turnover of over RMB 100 million and 98 have been graded CMM/CMMI3 or plus.