Inside ASI-AP

We're pleased to announce details of the 2008 ASI Asia-Pacific iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) IT Round Table.

This biannual forum brings together a select group of iMIS customers that represent the largest organisations in the iMIS Community. It will be an opportunity to examine in detail the issues facing IT Executives and their organisations.

Details are:

Dates: Thursday 24th July 2008
Venue: ASI Melbourne Office
Level 22, 459 Collins Street
Melbourne, Victoria
Times: 9.30 am till late

The forum will be hosted by ASI Senior Management and will include a special presentation on the iMIS Product Development Outlook.

MEDIA RELEASE

June 17, 2008

iMIS Customers Preview the Future
at Business Excellence Framework Forum

The annual iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) Forum held on May 20 and 21 brought together 10 not-for-profit leaders - representing the largest users of the iMIS software solution in the Asia-Pacific region - for two days of intensive review and knowledge sharing, with the focus on achieving business excellence. Mobile phones were off, thinking caps on and best practice firmly fixed in the spotlight.

Held at historic Mansion Hotel at Werribee Park just outside Melbourne, the forum was hosted by Advanced Solutions International (ASI), the developers of iMIS. In attendance was US based chairman and CEO Bob Alves, ASI Asia-Pacific senior management and leaders from:

On Tuesday Jay, Mick and I were at APESMA (www.apesma.asn.au) for the fourth of a series of meetings with each of their key departments to help us plan out a one year roadmap as part of their iBEF program. APESMA have some unique challenges in that it was recently restructured to split the commercial business units from the traditional union organisation. The commercial units - including Chifley Business School (www.chifley.edu.au), Member Advantage (www.memberadvantage.com.au) and ETM Search & Selection (www.etm.com.au) - are all substantial businesses in their own right, but they also share infrastructure and many services with APESMA.

Our 6th Annual Executive Round Table is scheduled for May 20 and 21 to be held at the Sofitel Mansion and Spa in Werribee, just outside of Melbourne. We have made a venue change this year and gone back to the Sofitel chain for a better quality hotel and dining experience after being at Moonah Links for the last 2 years. Plus it is not as far for Marla to drive to when I lock my keys in my car!

The theme for this year's round table is "achieving business excellence" with specific focus on process centric cultures and targeted customer offerings. We will also be presenting an iMIS 15 roadmap for the first time - something that customers have been requesting for the last couple of years. Bob Alves is host once again, and the ASI team includes Mick, Jay, Marla and myself from AP, and David Riffle is also flying in from the US. Colin arrives back from the US right as the round table starts so he should be attending but not having to present. And we have a great guest speaker which I posted about earlier in the week.

As I posted about during the Innovations conference last month, the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) program is to be rolled out in the US embracing selected AiSPs and customers. Bob has appointed Neil Kleinberg to lead the program launch in the US, and over the coming weeks Mick and I will be meeting with Neil and others to help co-ordinate and support the launch. I am also in the process of creating a wiki that will incorporate all of the iBEF documentation so it can be opened up for collaboration with ASIer's in the US, the AiSP's in the program and to customers - I'll post more on this as the wiki nears completion.

Mick was in Sydney yesterday visiting with the Taxation Institute of Australia (www.taxinstitute.com.au) and conducting the first of their iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) meetings. The first meeting agenda was a workshop session with their strategy team to better understand their strategies and key initiatives. I normally attend these meetings with Mick in person but this time we decided to keep me in the office and connect me in using Sykpe video instead.

While we have conducted many video conference meetings on our Tandberg video units, these are only ASI office to office - customers do not have the Tandberg equipment for us to call into customer boardrooms. So enter the $100 webcam and Skype. Mick setup the webcam in the Institute's boardroom and then ran the meeting for 3 hours with me sitting in my office. The quality was far better than expected and I would certainly use it again.

Mick and I went over to Melbourne Uni today to visit with Dr Mile Terziovski, Associate Professor in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Melbourne Uni and he is also the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Mile was our lecturer last year at AIM on the subject of managing operational improvement and he is a highly regarded expert on the topics of process centered organisations, learning organisations and innovation - all cornerstones of business excellence frameworks including our own iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) and the 7 business drivers of high performance non-profits.

Mick and I were in Sydney Tuesday and Wednesday last week working with Chartered Secretaries Australia (CSA - www.csaust.com - an iMIS Content Manager website) and the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) program. We conducted 2 meetings relating to the strategic roadmap component of the iBEF program. All of the CSA state managers and the national office managers were in town for their 3 day semi-annual management meeting so it was a great opportunity to meet with the 12 or so senior staff including Tim the CEO.

Jason also spent about 2 hours separately addressing the same meeting on the iMIS Events and Education module enhancements.

We held our very first IT round table event on Thursday 13 September. For me, I believe it is the best event we’ve run ever. And most of the delegates that attended agreed with strong agreement recorded on the feedback survey.

The IT round table was modelled after the annual Executive round table which we have run for 5 years now. The Executive round table is an invitation only event to our largest 10-15 customers, and for the past 2 years the customer executives at that function have suggested that we run a similar round table event specifically for their CIOs/IT managers. So we did - we invited the CIOs and IT Managers from our largest customers and hosted them in our Melbourne boardroom. We had customers fly in from NZ, Perth, Sydney and Canberra.

Mick has created a new online community on advsol.com for the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) customers. This is an invitation-only community so you will need to request access via Mick. The online community will include mainly documents of relevance to iBEF customers including presentations from both the Executive and IT round table events held this year.

The direct link to the online community is here.

After a month or two of deliberations and some good submissions from many of you, we have finalised a name for the stratgeic partnership group that Mick is heading up.

iMIS Business Excellence Framework
A partnership where visionary ASI customers achieve great things

For short, we will be using the acronym iBEF; and when things are fully deployed electronically, a dedicated website for program participants only will be available at: www.iMISBusinessExcellence.com

The name was chosen because the drive to excellence, quality and great things used in our program is based on the Australian Business Excellence Framework, a formal program of continual improvement and quality outcomes based on the emerging management paradigm.

The Executive Briefing Round Table has been a regular event on the ASI calendar for the past 5 years. Each year, the COO's and senior executives of our largest customers are invited to spend a day with ASI senior management (including myself and CEO Bob Alves) - for information sharing and networking. This is an exclusive group of the largest associations in Australia and New Zealand.

At the last 2 events, the execs have given us feedback that we should run a similar annual event, but with their CIO's and IT Managers. The content would be more technically focused but still provide a great forum for discussion on iMIS and networking with peers.

July 13: From Sleepless Nights To A Dream Future - ASI’s New Strategic Partner Program Drives Non Profits Further

An innovative new partnership program by Advanced Solutions International Asia Pacific (ASI) will help some of Australia’s leading non profit organisations including the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, get a better night’s sleep and wake to a brighter future.

The ASI Strategic Partner Program offers non profits such as associations and membership-based organisations, charities and fundraisers, the opportunity to build an ongoing plan based on the seven key non profit business drivers for high performance non-profits. They are:

Home page for the ASI AP Strategic Partner Program being managed by Mick Varga.

Overview of business driver:

ASI AP current position: