The Imagination Age
By: Claudia J. Betzner

The 2004 SIA—AFSMI “Executive Summit for Services Leaders” was another great event. Dr. W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank, delivered a powerful address discussing many positive signs in the U.S. Economy, the focus of this year’s event. One of the most notable parts of his presentation centered on “Global Economic” issues such as China getting into the global mix. According to Dr. Cox, if China continues in the same mode and the others in the Global Economy mix continue on the same path—within 10 years China’s GNP will surpass everyone. He believes the China factor will be a major contributor to the global economic picture. If you have an interest in off-shore service or product sales of any kind, especially technology products, he believes China will be the largest buyer of these products. For 2000 years China remained pretty much the same but in the last ten years alone it has made major inroads into the opening up of the county and creating a open market system. He went on to provide statistics of things like TV’s, refrigerators, cars, etc. and how that will change dramatically over the next few years as Chinese people become more prosperous and are able to move from a primary agricultural environment to a climate of free exchange. He also revealed a little of his new book, “The Imagination Age.” According to Dr. Cox we are moving from the Communications age into an era he calls “The Imagination Age,” where he believes we are only limited by our ability to imagine. His last book was nominated for the Pulitzer prize. He wants to make it this time. Dr. Cox had so much information about the economy, it was obvious during his presentation, time was the enemy. He is by far the best economic guru I have had the privilege to know. I will keep you posted on when his new book, “The Imagination Age” will come out which is expected later this year.
There were many great presentations including that by Al Hahn, Bill Bleuel and of course Don Blumberg. Neil Allpress, Sr. V.P., Siemens Business Services, delivered an outstanding keynote presentation with sparkle, animation and interesting personal content. Neil talked about Total Solutions for Top Management. He discussed the Characteristics of a Total Solutions Provider and how Services build the biggest economic factor in industrialized countries. He also gave additional indicators the IT Service Marketplace is showing an attractive growth rate in the world market and discussed how Total Solutions Providers participate in the economic upswing. Neil provided seven examples. His presentation is available on the SIA secure portion of the website to members only.
I was impressed with all the new wireless options available which were reviewed in hands on demo’s by presentations. The truth is there was so much great info I cannot review it all here so go to the SIA website to review the presentations. Member’s only section.

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NewMembers

 

New Members The past 12 months Rollouts, Inc. LMS Service NetEagle Consulting MedEquip Biomedical Parco Wireless Siemens Business Srvs. Great Eastern Technology First Source, Inc. BIOCORDIS FRANCE CSI Computer Specialists, Inc. DecisionOne Corporation First Financial Computer Services, Inc. Ryzex Repair, Inc. Skill Medical Technology Technology in Medicine New this period: Halifax Corporation Chuck McNew, CEO John Scott, V.P. Alexandria, VA 703 658 2400 Getronics Robert Trottier, V. P. Tewksbury, MA 978 858 7287 POSDATA William McCubbins, Pres. Gerry Knight, V.P. Gig Harbor, WA 253 853 2350 C P & S Jose Bernal, CFO 951 Clint Moore Road Suite A Boca Raton, FL 33487 561 241 5133 or call Devin Rojas at 818 991 5822 Maintenance Alternatives Corp. Robert Field, President 951 Petaluma Blvd. South Petaluma, CA 94952 800 479 2004

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Announcing the 2005 Executive Summit

South Seas Resort & Yacht Harbour
Captiva Island, FL
March 6 - 8, 2005

Beautifully nestled in the pristine tropical beaches of Captiva Island surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, South Seas resort is uniquely poised for meetings of the highest caliber. The South Seas Resort is located about 45 minutes drive from Ft. Meyers, FL with over 330-acres of comprehensive recreation and is a self-contained resort on one of the most exclusive islands in Florida. It is like being in the Caribbean Islands except you are still in the U.S. They have their own golf course, 18 pools, 18 tennis courts, fitness center, a national wildlife refuge, their own fishing and yacht harbor for multiple opportunities for boating, fishing or just cruising. You will have a choice of a villa, suite or hotel room. The other end is Sanibel Island so your tropical experience for shopping, dining, recreation and personal pleasure is doubled. We have obtained an incredible rate of $189 for the harborside hotel room or $219 for your own villa which is usually over $400 in March. The normal $8 per day resort fee has also been waived for our group so your towels, fitness center, umbrella and chairs, free newspaper and parking are also included.

We are planning a sunset dinner cruise for the grand finale on Tuesday, March 8 and will have a reduced rate golf tournament for Sunday, March 6. We are still working out the details of the Tournament. You may call for reservations — 888 707 7888 by 2/03/05 for the discount rate. As usual you must mention Service Industry Association for the discount rate. Oh…..did I mention we are again teaming with AFSMI. It has been a very successful affiliation and we plan to continue this alliance. For planning purposes the first event will be the Golf Tournament on Sunday afternoon followed by a welcome reception Sunday evening. The joint meetings will be Monday and Tuesday with the last two hours of Tuesday dedicated to SIA’s annual meeting including the historic town hall meeting.
Please let me know if you would like to be a part of the conference committee for speakers and the agenda content. We are already accepting papers for possible speakers and content.

This is a world class resort on a private island with world renowned fishing, sailing, and the #1 most romantic beach in the U.S. so I would highly recommend you make this a vacation as well. The reduced rate has been extended for three days prior and three days after the conference which is not normal for this resort so take advantage. Check them out at:
www.south-seas-resort.com or www.floridameetings.com.

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A Tribute to Don Blumberg—An Industry Award

SIA would like to honor the memory of our friend and colleague Donald F. Blumberg who died on Saturday, May 29th, 2004. The Board and Executive Director of SIA have decided to honor Don’s memory by the presentation and naming of an award in his honor. It will be called the Don Blumberg Innovation Award and will be presented on an annual basis at the SIA executive Summit. Each candidate must be nominated from the industry, which would include a write-up of what the nominee did to deserve the award. The award can go to an individual or a company for innovation and the write-up & nomination must be completed by someone other than the nominee. The decision of the recipient would be completed by December each year. In the year measurements are used, D F Blumberg & Associates would complete the survey and provide the results of the top candidates to the Board who would then determine based on the write up the “most innovative” candidate. Some years objective measurement criteria will be used and in those years the award will be given to an organization that meets the following objectives:

• Excels in achieving industry related financial and operational performance benchmarks.
• Demonstrates that it has achieved measurable improvements in revenue, profits, and/or market share vis-à-vis the implementation of strategies and tactics, some of which could have been developed by the late Donald Blumberg, as described in his books and white-papers.
• The award is open to any company or individual in the high-tech service industry that supports Open Access Policy adopted by SIA.
  
  
  

Don Blumberg will be missed by this industry as the one who always thought out of the box with his view of the industry and Innovation to the industry. He will also be missed by the global high tech service industry, where he made a significant contribution and impact, both personally and professionally, on individuals and corporations who came in contact with him.

Starting in 1969, Don set up his own international management consulting firm d.f. Blumberg Associates, Inc. specializing in strategic planning, market research, productivity improvement, systems development and implementation, mergers and acquisitions, working with a broad range of Fortune 500 companies. Except for a brief tour as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in 1974-75, he has spent his time in strategic planning, consulting, writing over 350 articles and three books, speaking and lecturing, and traveling around the world. His specialization in running service businesses as a strategic profit center has made him an “expert” in a number of high-tech industries.

A call for nominee’s for this award:

We are now accepting nominee’s for this award. Again, the write up and nomination must come from someone other than the individual/company that is being nominated. The write-up for this first year should be how the individual/company has exceled, innovation demonstrated and results obtained as a result of this innovation. Submit nominee to the SIA headquarters.\

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SIA Executive Roundtable
Medical Equipment Service: The Outsourcing Marketplace.

Outsourced vs in house support for healthcare facilities and how this relates to the future of the industry. By Malcolm Ridgeway & Ray Zambuto

Competition/ Market share In-House (IH) + ISOs + Multi-Vendors (MVs). The market place is heterogeneous and fragmented: IH about 13.5%; several thousand shops; strongest in the larger teaching hospital sector. ISOs about 11.5%; few nationwide; 10 – 30 medium regional, hundreds of small local providers. MVs about 75%; GE about 38%; Philips about 20%; Siemens about 15%

Blumberg estimates total potential size of the Professional Services market to be about $24B in 2004. The Break-Fix segment of that is about $8B, distributed amongst some 5,000 hospitals plus many thousands of clinics, group practices and alternate care settings.

External sourcing in healthcare continues to boom; accounting for 16% of the average hospital’s total budget in 2003. But still lagging behind outsourcing in the general commercial sector (which is 33%) Motivation is cost containment. Hospitals are now believers that third party vendors can do many jobs better than they can, and do it for less. And they are now willing to outsource some clinical services such as Laboratory, Pharmacy, even anesthesia services and radiographic reading. “Biomed” has become less of a sacred cow.

There was some question as to whether hospitals are, in general, reversing the outsourcing trend and going in-house again. Modern Healthcare surveys continue to show that clinical engineering is in the top 3-4 outsourced services, however, and their data does not include all of the major players.
While the “street wisdom” (from the IH providers) is that IH is the least expensive of the alternatives, the jury is really out on that. Good management (= least expensive) can be achieved by both IH providers and contracted providers, and vice versa.

Partnering with the large MVs. - The future for the local and regional ISOs (?)
Generalists vs. specialists
The shortage of trained technicians
Help desk solutions not well accepted by hospitals. Concepts like the “help desk” must be handled carefully, however. It was pointed out that in the O.R., the surgeon doesn’t want a desk jockey - he wants the technician on the floor immediately. Some sort of real time dispatching would be good but not a standard IT help desk. They want someone on site to hold their hand

The IT board members noted that the clinical marketplace is looking much like IT did about 10 years ago, with many end users fielding their own departments, in-house. At that time, consumers were driving the in house market because they wanted an alternative to the OEM for service. The OEMs struck back with multi-vendor service. Today, many ISOs are doing the work as subcontractors to big enterprises and OEMs.

An article by Walt Gasparovic and Ray Zambuto in the recent S-Business magazine examines models for this, including the models at MERA and TiM.

Contracted on-site service has several theoretical advantages:

Perhaps the neutral, unbiased ability to provide efficient, shared technical consultation is the key to the survival of the regional and national ISOs. This could also be the key to breaking into the other $16B of professional services potential. According to Michael Blumberg, the $8B break fix segment of the marketplace is relatively flat at the present time, so those wishing to grow had better think about the bigger pie. PACS service is a key to breaking into the other areas of Professional Service because PACS brings all elements of service together at a single point.

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SIA Open Service Committee Report 07/01/04

Submitted by R Parks

1) Open Service Survey

The preliminary results of the SIA – DF Blumberg Open Service Survey were presented at our Board meeting. As usual, DFBA did a great job on the survey and in compiling results. After further discussion it was agreed that we should extend the survey to allow the inclusion of more participants. The survey has since been sent to five new companies and some of the original recipients have been given additional time to respond. We hope to have at least five additional responses to include in the results. I am shooting for return of surveys to DFBA by July 9.

Based on what we saw with the preliminary results this will be a great piece to add to our communication arsenal, especially in terms of documenting some of the economics involved. If you would like to see a copy of the preliminary report let me know.

2) Communication Plan

The communication plan needs to move forward and we have agreed in general to the priority structure below:

One of our committee members suggested we come up with an Open Service logo, one of the ideas presented was a small check box next to “Open Service”, we need a volunteer to pursue this.

3) On-going Committee Activity

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Letter From The President

Just imagine, the second quarter of 2004 has past and so many things have occurred, not the least of which has been a pickup in the economy, though maybe it has been somewhat smaller and slower than expected up to this time. Confidence is up because people are now seeing more positive news. There is still a good deal of negative news out there, but there is less negative news than there was a few months ago. For example, earlier this year, many people were worried about slow job growth and a possible jobless recovery. Since then, the Labor Department has reported three consecutive months of above-average payroll increases. Unfortunately, there are still problems holding confidence down. Consumers have been worried about the ongoing problems in Iraq, and that situation has not improved significantly. What does this mean for you and the Service Industry ? Increased spending and new opportunities for business growth.
The SIA board had it's first meeting of the year in Boston, MA along with an Executive Roundtable which has become a rather popular event. We began hosting these regional Roundtable discussions about one year ago. For those who may not yet be familiar with these quarterly Roundtable meetings, these are held in conjunction with scheduled Board meetings and allow for open discussion and comment by attendees on current industry issues and topics. Our next scheduled Roundtable and Board meeting will be held in Chicago on September 9th & 10th, with the roundtable meeting scheduled for September 9th. Topics being developed for this roundtable include Managed Services—Outsourcing Implications, M & A—Consolidations in the Service Industry and an open roundtable of other issues. Attendance at these regionally held roundtable meetings are by invitation only as we must control the total number of attendees to maintain it's intimacy and to allow time for all attendees to be heard. If you would like to attend a future meeting, or have a business or industry associate who you believe would offer comment or receive value from attendance, please contact either Claudia or myself.

As a reminder, our conference in 2005 will include the election of Board members for a two year period, as well as the election of a new Board President and Secretary Treasurer, which must come from the existing Board. As of our next conference I will have completed two full terms as the President of the SIA and as required by our Bylaws, will be stepping down from the position of President. I must say that the past four years have been both challenging and fulfilling. During my term as president I have made many new acquaintances and friends. I hope too that I have returned to the SIA as much as I have personally gained, but do not think that I will now just sit back and relax. In addition to becoming the Board Chairman, as the past president, I also am excited to report that TFE Technology, my fulltime job, was recently acquired by Diebold, Inc and look forward to the new opportunities and challenges that will result.

Be sure to make your plans early to attend our 2005 SIA Conference scheduled for March 6, 7, & 8, at the South Seas Resort in Florida. Be sure to look me up and introduce yourself if we have not already met, say hi and ask how things are going. I'll try to do the same to you.

Well, I guess that's all for now, other than to encourage each of you to either get involved, or continue to be involved in the association. I can tell you from experience that the more involved and active you are in the Service Industry Association, the more you will gain from it, so I encourage each of you to get more involved.

John Walker, President TFE Technology Holdings LLC & Service Industry Association

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A Call for Board Nominee’s, Committee Participants

Over the past few years our Board has restructured a couple of times, once when we added a Medical Group which I am happy to report has been a very successful marriage and second when we added a copier group, which was a part of SIA for a few season’s but are not currently a part of the organization. 2005 is our regular election year for the Board, each serving for a two year period and our bylaws allow us to increase the size of the Board when we as an association see the need for that. Your Board is currently reviewing this possibility plus we already have a couple of open seats. As you know the Board meets four times a year including the conference and each members serves on select committees. The Board serves for the good of the Industry and the Association, always watching over your interest and that of the Industry. If you talk to the Board you would find out as a result of their participation on the Board or a Committee the opportunities for networking, picking up new business, learning new tricks of the trade and increasing industry knowledge is dramatically increased as a direct result of their affiliation with SIA. We are now calling for nominations to the Board and for serving on Committee’s. The most active committee currently is the open access committee but we also have a Conference Committee, Membership Committee, and PR/Communications committee. For your review I have printed from our bylaws the qualification, etc. Please let me know if you are interested in placing your name or that of another in nomination for the Board or you would be interested in serving on a committee:
          SIA shall have the following officers: a Chairman, a President, a Secretary/Treasurer, an Executive Vice President of each Group, a Vice President of each Group, a Membership Vice President, a Secretary of each Group, and a Special Interest Group Coordinator of each Group. The Corporation may also have such other officers as may be appointed by the Board. No person shall hold more than one office. New Groups added may have a lesser number of Board representatives for an interim period of time as the Board sees fit.

Qualifications. In order to be an officer of the Corporation, a person shall be a principal, or a member of senior management with policy setting authority, of a Service Company Member in good standing and, in the case of officers representing a particular Group, such Service Company Member must belong to such Group. No person may serve more than two consecutive terms in a given elective office

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Service Industry Association

518 San Andres Drive
Solana Beach, CA 92075

Phone: 619 221 9200
Fax:858 720 8201
Email: cbetzner@aol.com

The Network for High Technology Service Promoting Customer Choices
___________________
Www.
servicenetwork.
org

Service Industry Association is a non-profit organization made up of high technology service companies promoting customer choices.

Sponsors & Board

Sponsors
Masterplan
Malcolm Ridgeway,Sr.V.P.
Bruce Cree, President
Maintech
Frank D’Alessio, Pres.
Carole Greene, Sr.V.P. Mktng & Sales
Northrop Grumman IT CIS
Hugh Taylor, Pres. IT CIS
John Rinas, Exec. Dir. Serv Del
TFE Technology Holdings LLC
John Walker C.E.O. & Pres.
Acceletronics
Steve Schwarz, Pres. & CEO
RadParts
Dimitro “Dee” Romanyzsyn, Pres.
Stephens International
Doug Stephens, Founder & Pres.
POSDATA
William McCubbins, President
Gerry Knight, V.P.
D.F.Blumberg Associates
Michael Blumberg, President
CSI Computer Specialists, Inc.
Bill Pershin, President
EAD Systems
Dave DeGiorgi, President
Board of Directors:
President: John Walker, Pres.
TFE Technology Holdings LLC
Sec-Treas: Open
Gen’lCounsel:Ron Katz, Principal
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP
Exec.Dir. Claudia J. Betzner

IT Service Group
EX V.P. Randy Parks, V.P Ops
TFE Technology Holdings LLC
Sec. Jon Scott, Sr. V.P.
Halifax Corporation (formerly MicroServ)
V.P. Benefits & S.I.G. Dave DeGiorgi, Pres. EAD Sys.
V.P. Membership
John Rinas, Ex. Dir. Serv. Del.
Northrop Grumman IT CIS

Medical Service Group
Exec.V.P. Dr. Malcolm Ridgeway, Sr. V.P. Masterplan
V.P. Membership Steve Schwarz, President Acceletronics
V.P. Benefits & S.I.G: Open
Sec. Jim Graham, Pres. & CEO Kinetic Biomedical Corporation
V.P. Ray Zambuto, President CEO
Technology in Medicine