The South Florida Technology Alliance (SFTA) will assemble a panel of experts to tackle one of today’s most challenging economic issues, the outsourcing of IT services to overseas vendors, when it hosts “IT Offshoring: A Fair and Balanced View” on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 at the NAP of the Americas in Miami.
The outsourcing of IT projects and support services to technical centers in India, China, Russia, Latin America and other regions is a controversial trend that has grown dramatically since the turn of the century. Attendees of the event will gain insight from IT leaders with an intimate understanding of all aspects of offshoring and facts to back up their opinions on this controversial topic. Panelists will include:
— Myles Cyr, CIO, Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines, the leader in the contemporary cruise sector and a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise vacation group in the world.
— Jamie Riis, CIO, BayView Financial Trading Group, Coral Gables, a mortgage bank whose principal businesses are the purchase of residential and commercial real estate loans and the origination of small balance commercial real estate loans.
— Jim Trautwein, CIO, BankAtlantic, one of the largest financial institutions headquartered in Florida, offering banking services and products via its network of community branches throughout Florida and its online banking division — BankAtlantic.com.
The panel will be moderated by Virginia Garcia, senior analyst, the TowerGroup, which advises financial institutions, integrators, and horizontal technology vendors on critical cross-industry business issues impacting the global financial services industry. Ms. Garcia is the author of a series of research reports on outsourcing trends.
The focus of the discussion will be not just a political view, but hard data about projects that have succeeded or failed, as well as details about practices that maximize ROI on IT projects for businesses across numerous industries. The significance of the topic can be seen not only in the daily coverage it receives in the media, but in the business facts as well: for example, in the financial services industry, it’s estimated that information technology spending by the top 15 companies on vendor-direct offshore outsourcing will grow by 34% annually through 2008*.
“IT offshoring of white-collar jobs is portrayed either as corporate treachery or as the solution to increasing economic opportunity through improved efficiency,” said Joel Ledlow, SFTA president. “Whatever one’s view, it’s evident that the move to a global IT services market is a trend that can’t be reversed. Our goal is to look at the issues as objectively as possible and provide guidance to businesses that want to operate efficiently and responsibly in the new environment.”
The SFTA event will begin with a networking reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the program at 6:30 p.m. at the NAP of the Americas, NAP of the Americas Boulevard, 50 NE 9th Street, Miami. The NAP of the Americas is the world’s fifth Tier-1 Network Access Point, and the only one designed and built from the ground up specifically to link Latin America to the rest of the world. Tours of the NAP will be available during the networking reception. For travel directions visit www.southfloridatech.org.