Benchmarking I.T. success in Asia
By Carol Ko
16 Oct 2008
One panelist's remarks at The Hong Kong International Computer Conference (HKICC) 2008 last month left me rather intrigued, which thus propelled me to skim through the Hong Kong 2009 Policy Address yesterday as soon as it was released.
Last month, five panelists took turns to brief the audience their current undertakings in HKICC’s first panel discussion titled ‘Integration of the ICT Industry in the PRD Region’.
Members in the panel were Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, elected member of the fourth legislative council of the HKSAR; Samson Tam Wai-ho, elected member of IT functional constituency of the fourth legislative council of the HKSAR; Meng Lin, president of Guangzhou Software Cooperation Centre; Qiu Shi, director, general of Zhuhai Municipal Government; and Zhang Keke, vice chairman of Shenzhen Science and Technology Association.
Not surprisingly, most panellists delivered comprehensive introductions of their recent portfolio, while the three representatives from mainland China conveyed their wish to establish closer ties in IT development with Hong Kong.
And very surprisingly, when it came to Samson Tam, he lamented that there would not be much for him to talk about after he found out that Donald Tsang, the chief executive of the HKSAR government, was planning to “cover IT in two paragraphs in his upcoming policy address”.
I was left puzzled for two reasons. Number one, don’t legco members have their own agenda to drive policy development, regardless of the positioning of the chief executive? Number two, what about the Digital 21 Strategy? Isn’t it a mini policy address worth examining, in one of Hong Kong’s annual computer conferences?
Hubs hubs hubs
To my relief, there were more than two paragraphs mentioning IT in Hong Kong policy address 2009 released yesterday, titled ‘Embracing new challenges’.
Page 15 laid down the government’s ambition to “to strengthen Hong Kong's position as a leading digital city in the world”. Notice that the government is further pushing forward its position from ‘Asia’s IT hub’ to ‘the world’s IT hub’.
For those who are unfamiliar with Hong Kong’s scenario, the ‘hub’ strategy of Hong Kong government has existed since the handover, with the government investing into various ‘hubs’ such as tourism, IT, Chinese medicine, and science and technology etc.
Remembering Michael Leung’s (senior vice president and CIO of China Construction Bank Asia) repeated remarks of “Do the right things, and do things right”, I do have faith in the Hong Kong government’s IT direction (investing in IT development). But has it been doing it right? Are we attempting to transform ourselves into too many hubs, and get ourselves a mouthful of hiccups instead?
Benchmarking I.T. industry
The best way to gauge the success of anything is to benchmark it against its peers. For CIOs, they undoubtedly undergo stringent vendor selection processes and for IT vendors, I am sure they have various tools to benchmark themselves against their competitors.
Allow me to present you another tool here—the upcoming MIS Strategic 100 to be published in November 2008. It would be your handy reference to the top 100 IT vendors in Asia, comprising 50 global and 45 regional companies and five rising stars that our 30-member judging panel across Asia, Australia and New Zealand believes they would strike an impact on the IT industry in the next 12 months.
Carol Ko is the Deputy Editor of MIS Asia and is chiefly responsible for covering stories of CIOs and senior IT managers in North Asia.
