CRM Out Of The Box: Separating Hype From Reality
Speaker: Sue Goble and David Tilsley, Siebel Systems Inc.
Date: Tuesday 10th December 2002

• Packaged CRM systems can help companies improve customer service, increase revenue and reduce costs but to do so they must make the best use of the package and also ensure that the business users are properly engaged. The presentation will deal with best practice and the technology needed, and will explain Siebel's methodology, tools and processes.

Protecting your company's email from viruses, spam and porn.
Speaker: Graeme Stewart, Messagelabs Ltd
Date: Wednesday 20th November 2002

• A vital communications medium can be turned into a major risk for organisations, with the potential of infecting or offending customers, partners and suppliers. The evening provides a chance to learn from Graeme how best to mitigate this risk. His organisation, Messagelabs, is a leading company involved in virus protection, identification and cure.

Developments in Process Management Systems.
Speaker: Stan Averell, Director of Visflow Ltd
Date: Thursday 7th November 2002

• Stan was a senior line manager for many years and has broad experience of change management and process re-engineering using a wide range of tools and techniques. Translation of vision, mission, strategy, processes and procedures from reference documentation to living reality is the focus of this presentation. He will use examples from re-engineering initiatives to illustrate how success can be achieved by maintaining focus, clarity and simplicity, choosing the right IT strategy and making sure that everybody knows "what is in it for me". Stan is a director of Visflow Ltd. The company specialises in process management software.

Business Benefits and Challenges of next generation Contact Centres
Speaker: Paul White - CEO of a BT business Contact Central
Date: 6th November 2002

• This event will address the issues and methods whereby both individuals and companies can use contact centres to maintain and enhance their customer and business interface via phone, email, text etc.
  • gain an understanding of how changing customer communication trends
  • hearing the experiences of large corporate organisations
  • understanding the business challenges of change in contact
  • what are the technology challenges and benefits
  • informing you on where and how to use new internet, CRM and phone technology
  • an opportunity to ask questions and share experiences.
• Paul White - CEO of a BT business Contact Central which is a leading the development and implementation of integrated pre packaged internet call centre. www.contactcentral.co.uk
• We will be joined by an executive from a corporate that are currently meeting the challenge of delivering one contact centre to their clients and partners.

IT Direction: managing risk, minimising cost, maximising value
Date: Wednesday 30 October 2002

• IT projects fail to be delivered on time and on budget; security breaches and infrastructure failures lead to corporate embarrassment and financial loss; IT costs continually seem to rise; the technology itself becomes more complex, harder to integrate, more difficult to control, yet at the same time business reliance on IT is at an all time high. Increasingly corporate success depends on the 24/7 availability of information and services based on advanced technology designed, developed and managed by internal or outsourced IT specialists. However, it is the Board of Directors and senior business management who have the ultimate responsibility to direct and manage the business. How can they exercise their governance responsibilities over IT when they often do not know the right questions to ask let alone understand the implications of the answers they may be given? This major half-day event is designed to help business managers, and those who advise them, to better understand today's critical IT issues and how best to discharge their IT governance role.
• Manage your risk or risk your management Paul Williams FCA MBCS
• Never mind the cost, what about the value? Gary Hardy
• E-commerce Rules - OK? What every business needs to know about e-business regulation Jyoti Bannerjee, Chief Executive of MyBusiness.Net

Delivering Global Excellence (download the powerpoint presentation)
Speaker: Alan Jones, OBE, Group Managing Director, TNT
Date: Wednesday 23 October 2002

• In today's world of global competition, increased by electronic commerce and consumer awareness, organisations must be both effective and efficient. Alan Jones will outline the TNT experience in moving toward the goal of achieving global excellence. Under his leadership TNT has won the 1994 UK Quality Award, a record four consecutive European Quality Prizes for business excellence and the 1998 European Quality Award. In addition TNT is the winner of the Investors in People 1998 Key Champions Award, and the Investors in People 1999 Award for Outstanding Practice. The company again achieved record profits and out performed the express delivery industry in its most recent financial reporting period.
• Alan's presentation will be preceded by brief welcoming addresses from Professor Maureen Neal, Dean of the School of Mathematics and Information Sciences and a senior colleague who will outline the training and consultancy services provided to business and industry.

Maximising the Value from Change
Date: Tuesday 22 October 2002

• Lloyds TSB is implementing a Benefits Realisation approach Group-wide. The presentation covers
  • The state of benefits realisation in the industry - why it's a hot topic
  • What is being put in place (including the use of the business case as the fulcrum for managing benefits)
  • Discussion of the challenges and issues in making such a change on this scale
  • On-going development of the use of the approach (value management)
• Peter Hawkins is Programme Director, Benefits Realisation at LloydsTSB. He has been involved in the development and implementation of project management standards for the bank and has spent most of his career in project management (both in IT and for the last 10 years in a business capacity).
• Nick Excell has a similar background, being a member of the benefits realisation programme team and also having spent a long time in developing standards and guidance for project management, and before that a career in project management.

Working from home as a Consultant or Career breaks and Consultancy
Date: Saturday 19th October 2002

• A wide variety of reasons can lead to a career break often associated with a change of course to one's career. The company for whom you have worked for some time no longer needs you, you feel the need to do something different, you need to be at home to bring up young children or to take care of a close relative, you have this good idea that you wish to exploit, or you are retiring but do not want to stop working as a professional. It is common for the option of working as a consultant to be on your menu of options. The problem can be that you do not know how difficult it would be or where to start. This meeting or training seminar is aimed at contributing to your knowledge and assisting you with the decision making process. If you decide to be involved in consultancy work then it will assist you to do just that.

What is Information security and BS7799? Why As the Government instructed all public authorities to have BS7799 in place by the end of 2003?
Speaker: Jason Parker-Smith, Aston Information Security Management Consultancy
Date: Tuesday 15 October 2002

• The sections that make up BS 7799 will be presented and the seminar will cover Security Policy, Security Organisation, Asset Classification and Control, Personnel Security, Physical and Environmental Security, Communications and Operations, Management, Access Control, Systems Development and Maintenance, Business Continuity Management and Compliance
• The seminar will help to measure company risk, understand the risks - hackers are not the biggest risk, strategise to reduce risk and manage the risk. Information Security breaches are more likely to affect organisations that say 'It won't happen to us'.

Enterprise Planning (ERP) Systems: Do they measure up?
Speaker: Dennis Keeling, a business software analyst and Chief Executive of BASDA
Date: Tuesday 8 October 2002

• Enterprise-wide (ERP) Systems - how do they measure up against stand-alone and best-of-breed business systems? Has the massive investment in these systems paid-off? - how does one measure the return on that investment?
• Dennis Keeling, a business software analyst and Chief Executive of BASDA, the international software standards body, will outline the advantages and disadvantages of enterprise-wide systems. He will outline the ongoing trends in the software industry and the new developments that can help to improve productivity and reduce costs.
• Dennis has been a business software analyst for nearly 20 years, and has worked with several government departments and large corporates to help them find the right business solutions. He was one of the founders of BASDA in 1993 which has been involved in Accounting, VAT, EMU and now eCommerce standards and accreditations.

Developments in Risk Management Techniques
Speaker: Keith Baxter, De-Risk Consulting
Date: Thursday 26th September 2002

• Keith is a consultant with many years experience of creating, delivering, and using risk management techniques in a range of industries. Keith will be focusing on techniques developed in response to recent developments in risk management thinking, and will be illustrating their use with examples drawn from both the public sector and other industries. The presentation will be followed by an opportunity to discuss all aspects of risk management. Keith, formerly of AT Kearney, works for De-Risk Management Consulting, who use a range of services including management consulting, training and executive coaching to identify and mitigate the risks in all key aspects of a clients business.

Intellectual Property - its creation, protection and exploitation
Date: Thursday 26th September 2002

• Intellectual Property (IP) is the foundation of every Business. If good ideas are successfully documented, protected and developed into worthwhile services or products that people need, then they are also worth a great deal of money.
• This meeting gives an insight into the world of IP creation and its exploitation via a number of commercial routes. The presenters of each paper are recognised experts in their area of IP, and offer a useful guide to those wishing to make more of their ideas.
• 2.00pm: What can you do with a little bit of knowledge? Mark Aston, Aston Technical Consulting
• 2.30pm: Protecting knowledge Gary Townley, The Patent Office
• 3.15pm: How valuable is Intellectual Property? Mark Bezant, Anderson Consulting Ltd
• 3.45pm: Pennies from Heaven -a Business Angel's perspective Richard Brook, E-synergy Ltd
• 4.15pm: Venture Capital investment in IP Presenter to be announced, 3i Ltd
• 4.45pm: The legal side of IPR The Hon. Mr Justice Jacob (Sir Robin Jacob)
• 5.15pm: Panel Q&A

System Architects (see the report)
Speaker: Presentation by Tony Willis, IBM.
Date: Tuesday 24th September 2002

• The concept of the Systems Architect is understood within IBM and other consultancies, however the role has rarely penetrated the small business arena. The systems architect aims to present a framework that gives a technical direction to development projects. He/she ensures that the technical components of different projects are compatible, even aiding one another and certainly not conflicting. At the highest level the brief is to ensure that the technical policy for IT is in line with the overall direction of the organisation. Tony Willis will reveal the deep secrets of the craft and make every one want one for their next project!

When to DIY and when to call in an MR Specialist
Speaker: Len Clark
Date: Tuesday 17th September 2002

• Len Clark is an experienced market researcher and his presentation will include the following:
  • What is market research? - focus groups, hall tests etc. briefly explained.
  • Who can do it- DIY or agency? You do not always need an expert - guidelines and advice on interviewing, questionnaire wording, survey design etc.
  • What to do with your research

ECRM: Customer Relationship Management at the Heart of your Business
Speaker: Chris Huckle, partner, CRM, Price Waterhouse Coopers
Date: Tuesday 14th May 2002

• The meeting is hosted by the BCS Kingston and Croydon Branch and Kingston University

SIBELIUS: The Fastest, Smartest, Easiest Scorewriter In The World
Speaker: John Barron, Sibelius Software Ltd.
Date: Tuesday 16th April 2002

• This presentation is an example of how the arts and sciences can come together for the benefit and enjoyment of all and it will be of great interest to those who love music of any type including the amateur and serious musician.
• Sibelius is the genius of twin brothers Ben and Jonathon Finn. Passionate about music and computer programming from an early age, they have designed and developed the ultimate scorewriter: the multi-award winning Sibelius Software. The demonstration will show how a composer or arranger can turn their ideas into a score ready to be performed. Music scanning and Internet publishing will also be shown as will Expressivo, the playback facility that intelligently interprets your composition to give a realistic performance. This presentation will be of great interest to both the serious musician as well as the amateur and shows how the arts and sciences can come together for the benefit of all.

Telematics, Ecommerce In The Driving Seat
Speaker: David Viney, Business IS Manager, eCommerce, Centrica/AA
Date: Tuesday 12th March 2002

• What will you be doing in your car by 2010?
  Will it be: turn by turn voice-activated navigation systems that tell you the way to the nearest McDonalds / Petrol station / cash machine and airbags that can call the emergency services for you when you crash into a tree. It's a brave new world that has such vehicles in it. In his presentation David Viney will explain some of the systems now under development.

Multi-Channel Banking
Speaker: Gerry Allen, Strategy & Programme Manager, Woolwich Bank
Date: Tuesday 19th February 2002

• Open Plan is Woolwich's innovative and award winning approach to banking. It relies on the effective use of information technology to:
  a) create a new way of banking that brings real value to customers
  b) deliver this capability via a range of integrated channels (including internet, WAP and iDTV).
• The presentation will cover the Strategy/Business drivers, a description of Open Plan, implementation of the e-channels, results and lessons learned and future plans.

Project Management With The Lights On - An Introduction To Earned Value
Speaker: David Galley, Senior Consultant, Xmbrace Ltd
Date: Tuesday 15th January 2002

• David Galley will suggest that without Earned Value Management, managing projects is like managing in the dark. His presentation will introduce the central notion of EVM, Earned Value, and the derived performance indices and will explain the resulting "illumination". He will then summarise other pieces of the EVM jigsaw and include some pointers of where to go for more information. The presentation will include a short demonstration of an EVM tool.

The Future Of E-Government. So What Changes?
Speaker: Michael Spanner, VP eBusiness and Program Operations, Global Public Sector, UNISYS.
Date: Tuesday 11th December 2001

• Michael Spanner will begin his presentation with a review of what's happening around the world with respect to the current and future development of e-Government. He will then go on to discuss how these developments affect citizens, businesses and society in general?

Why a Digital Company Needs to Change in the Digital Age (see the report)
Speaker: Royden Gothelf, Reuters Ltd
Date: Tuesday 13th November 2001

• Royden Gothelf is responsible for aspects of strategy and planning within Reuters business transformation programme. This has a global remit to identify new business process and systems capabilities that Reuters will need to continue to be a successful business in terms of profitability and customer satisfaction. Royden will discuss some of the key issues they face including:
• Business process and organisational change - i.e CRM, supplier relationships, tax and legal challenges in a global eBusiness economy, communities and new liquidity pools, new roles and responsibilities in the organisation and trends arising from the understanding of the knowledge economy.
• Technology - new challenges for a digital company i.e entitlement control, contributions management, trust, electronic bill presentation and payment, user directories, mcommerce, knowledge mgt, alliances and channel partners, content management and internet procurement
• Transition planning - business process models to maintain the existing business focus and revenue streams whilst transition to new commercial models that fit the global eCommerce business.

What makes Web Visitors Click: Find out about the Story Types that Really Matter (there are only 7...)'
Speaker: Jon Bernstein, Editor-in-Chief, Silicon Media Group
Date: Tuesday 20th November 2001

• The web has turned us all into publishers but only a few will succeed to attract the right audience in the right volume. Jon Bernstein will look at this issue as a former print journalist and editor-in-chief of Silicon Media Group. If you're in publishing, you need to know how to get it right. If you want coverage you need to understand what motivates online editors.
• Themes that Jon will touch on include:
  - The differences between on- and off-line journalism/publishing
  - The companies and personalities that will get clicks
  - The story types that really matter (there are only 7...)
  - The power of headlines in the online world
• Jon is the founding editor of silicon.com. Launched in July 1998, silicon.com delivers a fully personalised real-time news and recruitment service in both text and broadband-TV-on-demand format. Jon's 'Weekly Roundup' newsletter is required reading for IT, ebusiness and business decision makers

Enterprise Process Management (see the report)
Speaker: Ian Gotts, CEO, Nimbus Partners
Date: Wednesday 31st October 2001

• "Business processes are the lifeblood of strong enterprises, and prudent action demands a renewed emphasis on process management skills and technologies" - Gartner - Research note 23rd April 2001.
• Business processes are both dynamic and cross-functional, and as such they need to be managed on an enterprise wide basis. This presentation will introduce delegates to both the strategy of Enterprise Process Management and the use of control software. Ian will draw on his experiences at Nimbus Partners to show how companies can gain competitive advantage through the continual improvement of their business processes using an EPM strategy. Companies that have already adopted this strategy include DaimlerChrysler, Orange, Telewest, Cisco Systems and Intrepid Oil. Ian will also briefly outline the software developed by Nimbus to assist companies implement their EPM strategy and includes the following quote: "Anyone who sees control software is left staggered" - Alan Watt, head of process development Telewest Business Services.

Delivering Maximum Business Value from Information Systems
Speaker: David Jacobs, Director of Profit from Information Ltd
Date: Tuesday 16th October 2001

• As a modern Information Systems professional everybody tells you that you need to align business and IT with focus on maximum business benefits, but nobody tells you how!
• Organisations expend a vast amount of time, effort and money on Information Systems and yet achieve disappointingly modest levels of business value and benefits. Business people wonder why systems take so long and too often fail to address business objectives and IT people wonder why business people keep changing their requirements - or don't even know what they want in the first place. How do we get the best value from IS and IT in this situation when none of the available 'methods' seem to cover the real issues?
• In this presentation David Jacobs will introduce The Profit Business Value Approach to the improvement of information systems business value and benefits. The Approach forms a detailed, pragmatic and business driven perspective on the use of information systems.
• David came into computing after a career in marketing information, analysis and research and, whilst working as a programmer and business analyst, developed extensive skills in Business-IT integration and mediation, which resulted in The Profit Business Value Approach. Since 1995 he has published a number of articles on the subject and makes regular presentations.

Safeguarding your company against the Hacker
Speaker: Nigel Rix, General Manager (UK) and Rob Pope, Security Engineer, VIGILANTe UK Ltd
Date: Tuesday 25th September 2001

• Joint meeting with the Institute of Management Consultancy, the BCS, the IT Faculty of the ICAEW, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Chartered Institute Marketing and the E-Business Group, Henley Mgt. College Alumni Association.
• According to Gartner Group, the increasing threat posed by the unauthorised hacker is a matter that business community can ill afford to ignore - 50% of all small and medium-sized companies will be attacked in 2003, and most alarmingly, 60% won't even notice it has happened, despite the potential loss this could cause to a reputation or brand. So what do companies need to do in order to protect themselves against the increasing threat from the unauthorised hacker?
• Nigel Rix and Rob Pope will show through a "live hacker demonstration" the threats that an increasingly active hacker community now poses to organisations and businesses worldwide. They will explain the concept that true security consists of assessing your network, determining acceptable risk and prescribing corrective action where necessary. And, drawing on their experiences at VIGILANTe they will show how organisations can safe-guard an asset that is all too often left exposed to unauthorised and prying eyes, namely "digital and intellectual content".

Winning in the Race for E-Business (see the report)
Speaker: Professor Jim Norton, Head of E-Business Policy at the IOD and Former Director of the Cabinet Office PIU e-Commerce Team
Date: Tuesday 26^th June 2001

• Jim Norton describes how the tools of e-business are having a fundamental impact on companies, large and small in both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ economies.  He gave practical examples of how these tools are being exploited today to transform the business models of many organisations, and also examined how companies can combine the best expertise of conventional business with the new tools of e-business. For more information, why not take a look at the report of Jim Norton's presentation, written by Rajan Anketell.

E-Business & The Law 
Speaker: Graham Smith A partner with Bird & Bird, lawyers who specialise in E-Business issues
Date: Wednesday 30^th May 2001

• The decision of a French court that Yahoo!'s US site has to comply with French law has given new momentum to the debate about which countries' laws a website has to observe.  Should it have to comply with the law in every country in which it is visible?  Or need it only comply with the laws of its home jurisdiction?  Should websites be incentivised to try to block visitors from overseas countries, or is this a retrograde step?  Should an e-commerce site be subject to the laws of each country in which it makes actual sales, or only those of countries that it actively targets, or only its home country's laws? 
• Commentators are worried that if the French Yahoo! case represents a trend, it could stifle the growth of E-Business and even jeopardise the existing structure of theInternet.  In Europe individual businesses could have to comply with up to 15 different national laws, deterring not only smaller companies from venturing into E-Business but large US companies from setting up European websites.
• Graham Smith will give his views the conflicting policy and legal perspectives that will inform this continuing debate.

The Internet: Business Opportunities, Threats and Risks
Speaker: D (Rajan) Anketell, International Management Consultant and Industrial Fellow of Kingston University
Date: Tuesday 8^th May 2001

• The explosive advance of information and communication technologies is making a tremendous impact on the business and social environments. It is transforming the way in which organisations operate and their relationships with their customers (via the Internet), employees (via Intranets) and suppliers and partners (via Extranets). Some organisations appear to be successfully riding the ‘new wave’ while others appear to be falling behind or drowning. Much has been written about opportunities and benefits. But since technology is neutral there are also many threats and risks. This presentation will focus on the latter issues and will discuss methods for addressing the threats and for quantifying and minimising the risks.

"Speech Recognition is Useful"... Fact or Fiction?
Speaker: Emmeline Johnston, IBM UK Speech Systems Manager
Date: Tuesday 30^th January 2001

• A UK survey on an earlier version of ViaVoice found that users were not only more accurate but were up to 53% faster than if they typed. So PC users who spend on average one hour per day typing documents or e-mails could save three working weeks over a full year. With Release 8, even these impressive productivity gains are exceeded. Speech recognition could change both consultants and clients working style, saving time on all typed correspondence, from simple e-mail to complete document preparation. As part of her presentation Emmeline will be issuing the 'ViaVoice challenge' - asking you if you really can type faster than we can talk - with copies of ViaVoice at stake. Emmeline will also briefly look at how IBM is developing and deploying other speech enabled systems where the devices in question range from the telephone and Palm Pilot to the WAP phone. If you have ignored speech in the past then perhaps it is time to revisit its capabilities and come and see for yourself!