Outsourcing summit shows off vitality of the sector

By Wang Xin (China Daily) Updated: 2013-07-03 08:03

This year, service suppliers from India and Brazil will debut at the summit.

The rising scale is a reflection of the event's growing international influence, yet size has never been the focus of organizers, Zhou noted. "We put more emphasis on its commercial value - how many business talks at the meeting will develop into real projects outsourced to local suppliers."

"The meeting won't come out with a huge number of deals immediately," she said.

Different from a commodity trade fair where transactions tend to be made on the spot, it takes longer to reach service agreements, especially on long-term cooperation, Zhou said.

Traders have to invest more time after the meeting investigating the credentials and worthiness of their world-be partners. "It is a trust-building process," she noted.

Compared with other industrial fairs or conferences, hosting a service outsourcing meeting costs more as buyers receive paid flights and accommodation, which is the industry norm.

As a result, suppliers are requested to pay for registration. The registration fee helps to screen out weaker players and increase the efficiency of networking, Zhou said.

However, organizers have also set a lower threshold - one-fifth of the official registration fee - for smaller local businesses.

"They need learning opportunities for growth," Zhou said.

Except for business meetings, which are only open to full-fledged registered companies, they have access to workshops and forums where top industry analysts, executives of renowned companies and scholars from around the world exchange insight on hot issues in the sector.

A roundtable conference gives voice to Chinese service suppliers on the opening day at this year's event.

At that time Zhou's council will release a report on leaders and growth companies in China's service sourcing businesses.

And top Chinese service suppliers will share their improvement solutions, intellectual property practices and information security protection.

In addition, a dialog with heavyweight analysts at Gartner, a US IT research and advisory firm, also adds clout to the meeting.

Seminars on service outsourcing in telecommunications, healthcare, medicine R&D, finance, cloud computing technology and training will have wide discussions on the latest developments in those fields.

The only nation-themed session will be on business sourced from Japan. Scheduled for July 4, it will explore enhanced service collaboration.

With the theme of "innovation, application and integration", this year's summit focuses on new technologies and innovative business models, tech applications for commercial operations, and resource integration, organizers said.

Founded by the ministries of commerce, education, science and technology, and industry and information technology in 2008, the annual event aims to be a major trade platform for service outsourcing businesses in Asia, they said.