taking it forward

Lance G Stanford, chairman of the itSMF Thailand Association, has been busy promoting innovation in information technology to address business challenges here.

With the upcoming annual conference of itService Management Forum (itSMF) scheduled for October 16, Stanford, a long-time resident of Thailand, hopes the event will help upgrade the quality of local IT services.

A former president of TCC Technology, Stanford said itSMF now has 54 member countries, with Thailand joining the association as the 42nd member country last year.

The international grouping aims to promote the "best practice" among 25,000 IT practitioners. Originally, itSMF started in the UK as a sort of guideline for the industry in a fashion similar to ISO 20000.

As businesses depend more and more on IT to promote and deliver their products to the market, the benefits of adopting the "best practice" become obvious.

According to Stanford, who is currently an IT adviser to the TCC group of companies, which includes Thai Beverage, producer of Chang and related beers, the itSMF provides an accessible network of industry experts and information sources to address service-management issues so as to ensure the delivery of quality and consistent IT services internally and externally.

Globally, itSMF has more than 6,000 member companies, covering about 70,000 individuals. In Thailand, the two-year-old local chapter now has six member firms with 96 individuals. TCC Group, Stock Exchange of Thailand, Thaicom, Bangkok Bank and IBM are among the local member companies.

Regarding the October 16 annual conference of itSMF, itSMF International chairman Sharon Taylor will be among the keynote speakers. Taylor is also the chief architect and examiner for IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the world's references for best practice.

itSMF Thailand vice chairman Sutthichai Preamsiriniran said Taylor is one of the most sought-after speakers for international IT events due to her ITIL reputation.

In his opinion, the economics of IT investment today depends on an organisation's business direction as the quality of IT services ought to be appropriate and properly aligned with the business objectives.

In other words, it is a matter of expectation on the optimisation of IT investment.

For example, an enterprise that is highly sensitive to computer downtimes, such as the stock market, may find it economically worthwhile to invest substantially in an IT system that has the lowest-possible ratio of disruptions to its stock-trading system since the benefit will outweigh the cost.

On the other hand, such a big investment might not be worthwhile for other types of organisations that are less sensitive to downtimes.

Sutthichai said ItSMF Thailand has emerged as a forum for the sharing of information, knowledge and experience on implementing the best practice for IT as members could learn from previous mistakes of other members worldwide.

"In other words, we could skip some of the trials and errors that are common among previous IT practitioners as we learn from others' mistakes."