Ladies and gentlemen. Years after the release of the book - The World is Flat, my company InfoTech has really been benefited from various 'flatteners', 'flattener' is a term used by Thomas Friedman - the author of this bestselling book to depict elements that foster globalization.
By setting up the VoIP telephone system, in Friedman's term - 'The Steroid flattener', my customers in Shanghai can now ring me using my Shanghai local phone number while I am physically in Hong Kong, or I can literally be in anywhere so long as I have got my notebook and can access Internet, I can video conference while working on shared documents with staff across locations. To build this voice and data unified infrastructure, IT expertise, in our case, is more crucial than capital investment.
Business Intelligence software is getting more popular, but cheaper, you may perform Business Intelligence analysis even simply with MS Excel so long as you have got a clue on using the relevant functions and formulas. You can instantly check the spreadsheet in your smartphone, make decision right at your fingertips.
All these create value and success, all these are actually built by IT staff or simply - IT talents. In the past two years, InfoTech has hired three times the number of in-house IT staff, InfoTech's group year-ended profit in March 2011 has a bounce of 32%. I must admit InfoTech, as one of the largest IT staff service companies in Greater China, is in a better position in searching and selecting the right competent IT staff.
'Flatteners' like VoIP, Internet, Smartphone, Groupware, Business Intelligence software are the basics, an effective collaboration among non-IT staff in using these technologies further reinforces productivity. Only the high-calibre IT staff can help initiate what Thomas Friedman called the 'convergence', in other words, technology knowledge management or IT knowledge sharing and spreading across all staff. IT talents are always short in supply, I believe in the return on investing in this type of human capital, I envisage it as a low-risk high-yield investment in this competitive globalized market of the 21st century. Thank you everybody and hope you all enjoy this wonderful event!