As TM Forum winds down its 10th Management World event in Nice, the organization’s President Martin Creaner and Chairman & CEO Keith Willetts spent some time reflecting on the week and both agree that the week has been a phenomenal success not only for TM Forum, but for the attendees, exhibitors and everyone involved in this world’s largest communications conference.
“It’s surprising, but there’s really not a lot of gloom and doom about economic woes, and the industry is already looking beyond the recession,” Willetts said. “They are seeing the need to invest in service innovation, but it’s not about fancy new retail services as in previous years; rather the industry has realized that its role is as an enabler for others to provide the retail service.”
Willetts adds that the key concepts for telcos – getting costs down, increase service revenue and improve service loyalty – are the same ideas that have been bandied about for years, but what’s different is that at this year’s Management World rather than a focus on cost-cutting, event participants are more interested in service innovation and creation. “I don’t know what suddenly happened,” Willetts said. “I suppose it’s the global stock market going up and people thinking the worse is behind us. People are looking over the horizon and thinking 12 months from now we will be seriously lagging behind our competitors if we’re not investing.”
Creaner points to the positive outlook by the keynote speakers as helping to set the mood for the overall good feeling about this week. “We had quality speakers and a breadth of speakers that was incredibly well received,” he says. He adds that the T8 World Summit, which was held Wednesday at the Palais de la Mediteranee Hotel, was unique due to the high caliber of participants. “Nowhere in the world can you get that quality of people in the same room for a half day to talk about service provider innovation and other hot topics of the day,” he says.
Creaner adds that the five conference summits were also quite heavy on the top-caliber speaking talent. “We’ve had an embarrassment of riches with keynotes all around,” he says. “The quality of presentations at the summits is every bit as good as the main keynote session, and that’s been reflected by the packed rooms.”
In fact, the number of attendees at this year’s Management World – over half of whom are senior-level executives – are in full business mode according to both Willetts and Creaner. “Deals are being done here; it’s not just window-dressing,” Willetts says. Creaner echoes this saying there’s been a positive buzz about doing business during Management World.
He points specifically to Forumville as a place where people can get practical, real-world ideas that they can take home immediately and implement in their environments. “What we’re doing will make a difference in 3-6 months, and at a time when short-term thinking is top of mind, you can’t get more relevant than that,” he says.
Join us Dec. 6-10 in Orlando, Fla. for Management World Americas 2009, where we expect this general positive feeling to continue.