October 20, 2009: Pre-Dinner Forum and Dinner Presentation

Pre-Dinner Forum: 4:30-5:30 PM
Topic: Cloud Computing and its Effect on Technology Spend
Speaker: Rohit Amarnath, Chief Technology Officer
Sponsor: Full 360

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift in which IT related capabilities are provided as a service, with a usage-based payment model. It is a shift affecting business models, architecture, and how IT develops, runs and delivers services. Cloud computing is also the backbone of services like Google for Apps that provide businesses services for free that once were a significant expense. Forward-looking firms are leveraging these services to reduce their IT development and infrastructure spend.

In this presentation, Rohit Amarnath of Full 360 Inc., will discuss the concepts of cloud computing and explain how cloud computing can help firms leverage an unlimited pool of computing, storage and free resources.

Rohit Amarnath is the Chief Technology Officer at Full 360 Inc, a firm that he founded after graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology. He leads the business intelligence and cloud computing practices at Full 360. His firm specializes in delivering solutions for business intelligence, reporting and cloud computing at an enterprise scale and boasts implementations at many of the largest firms on Wall Street. His deep expertise in sophisticated financial reporting systems and infrastructure helps him guide clients gaining insight into data buried in ERP and business systems. As CTO, he has helped Full 360 build a hosted analytics infrastructure using cloud computing, called cubeFlex�. Customers of all sizes are able to leverage data warehousing and reporting at scales previously only available to companies that could afford massive infrastructure capital outlays.

Networking Reception: 5:30-6:00 PM

Dinner Presentation: 6:00 PM
Topic: Professional Services Category Management - Exploring Procurement¹s Role in Driving Value Across the Enterprise
Speaker: Dr. John W. Kamauff, Principal, Archstone Consulting

Professional Services spend is significant - often approaching 20% of total spend for many companies - and touches a wide variety of stakeholders across the extended enterprise. As the procurement profession has matured, complex spend categories such as professional services are increasingly being strategically sourced using structured, methodological approaches. In this context, Professional Services lends itself to the strategic sourcing process, and, in particular, to the key tenets of leading edge complex category management.

Many companies optimize the value that their external professional service providers bring to the extended enterprise by segmenting their professional services spend, characterizing it according to customer needs and market capabilities. This process allows them to benchmark similar providers along cost and value dimensions and engages key stakeholders with common business requirements throughout the process.

During this session, we will discuss how many companies are approaching complex category sourcing and, in particular, the critical facets of professional services category management. Sourcing and procurement professionals who view complex category sourcing as an opportunity and are looking for what others have been able to achieve will benefit from participating in this session.

Dr. John Kamauff is a Principal with Archstone Consulting, where he specializes in supply chain management and strategic sourcing and leads their Global Sourcing and Procurement Practice. Dr. Kamauff is a former Senior Partner at both Ernst & Young and at PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as a Senior Advisor with Deloitte Consulting, where he helped to lead their respective global supply chain practices. Previously, he served as the Managing Director for the Carlson Consulting Enterprise at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management and was a Visiting Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management and Busch Executive-in-Residence at Loyola College in Baltimore. He has also taught at the University of Tennessee and in Canada, Mexico, Ecuador and Germany.

Dr. Kamauff has over twenty-five years of experience with the United States Department of Defense and leading commercial concerns in a variety of consulting and management positions. He has also led his own international management consulting company. Dr, Kamauff is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and has been instrumental in leading quality and Lean/Six Sigma initiatives across a variety of industries. Dr. Kamauff holds a Ph.D. from the Darden Graduate School of Business of the University of Virginia and an MBA from Boston University. He has an MA from the University of North Carolina, and an ME in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and the Air Force Test Pilot School. He has written numerous teaching and research cases and co-authored numerous books and articles on sourcing, procurement, operations management and strategy.

Registration:
Please email ISM-New York to register for a meeting or to request more information.