Spescom Limited has applauded the content of ITxpo 2001, SA's first Gartner symposium, which addressed the IT industry's current and future directions.
Paul Fick, head of Spescom's Customer Contact Solutions division, attended the conference held between 30 July and 1 August. He says Gartner, the global research and advisory firm, delivered practical, actionable IT information and strategy advice to business leaders attending the symposium.
"About 1 200 people, mainly suppliers and end-users from the IT industry, attended ITxpo 2001.
"The fact that over 50% of those present were company directors or CEOs indicates the interest in workable IT solutions that support critical business goals."
Fick says that during the conference, Gartner shared its insights into the connected world and where it is headed with the recent demise of so many dot-com businesses.
"The group believes the significant reductions in dot-com companies' market value and staffing confirm that the Internet alone will not actually change businesses, at least for now.
"Further, the group is of the opinion that business cannot be done via the network alone, and that organisations' success will depend on a true blending of the Internet economy and traditional business models."
Fick explains that according to Gartner, e-business is progressing through the so-called hype cycle, where a technology trigger is surrounded with a lot of excitement until it reaches a peak of inflated expectations and then dips into a trough of disillusionment.
"E-business has reached this stage, but its future is still promising for those organisations that rise above the hype and focus on performance."
Fick says one of the main themes of the symposium was the Net Liberated Organisation or NLO - the name Gartner has given to what it sees as a truly viable e-business that is able to achieve the maximum leverage from IT solutions as well as from the traditional bricks and mortar business model.
In Gartner's opinion, to make an NLO work, it must evaluate its business strategy and model.
"The business model drivers are the establishment of a global presence; virtualisation, which means the business is not tied to a specific geographic location; and transparency, allowing external interest groups more knowledge of the business than in the past."
Moreover, Fick says, where an organisation's business processes are concerned, the drive should be towards an ecosystem approach where vertical as well as downstream business partners are used more extensively, with the focus being on interbusiness processes.
"Here Gartner focused on the ability to be a world-class organisation without the company handling all business processes itself.
"Creating such a collaborative framework that allows enterprises to engage with cyber-market partners and suppliers, but also with clients to create, connect and synchronise agile business processes necessitate maximum levels of flexibility and trust."
Fick attributes Spescom's success to its adopting this partnership model.
"The company's strategy of partnering with the best, which incorporates diverse areas of expertise and depth of skills in complementary areas enables Spescom to provide total communication and IT solutions to the market."
Thirdly, Fick says, the conference also addressed the fact that in the connected world, the client is able to interact with all participants in the value chain - from the manufacturer through to the distributor and the retailer.
"Gartner's vision for the new networked economy places a much greater emphasis on satisfying the end-user's needs, which underlines Spescom's focus on the client in the e-business sphere."
Fick says for Spescom's Internet Business Solutions business unit as well as its Customer Contact Solutions business unit, the requirements of the client's end-users are foremost in devising and supplying an end-to-end communication solution.
In this manner Spescom ensures that an organisation can fully and effectively interact with its client on a physical connection level as well as a business process level, Fick concludes.
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Spescom Limited is an information and communications technology company with operations in the US, UK and SA.
The group is active in two main areas of the world IT market, namely offering product and solutions to connect to the networked economy, and the provision of software solutions to manage information and knowledge.
The strategic focus is on the convergence of knowledge, document, configuration and voice transaction management technologies.
Spescom holds the controlling interest in US-based Altris Software Inc, a Nasdaq-, OTCBB-listed company, and developer of the award-winning eB software.
In SA, Spescom, in alliance with world-leading companies such as Cisco and Avaya Communication, provides a range of customer contact and intelligent network solutions to its blue-chip customer base.
The company is a leading supplier of communications solutions and products to network operators and service providers on the African continent.
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