TPSA launches professional services benchmark survey 13 February, 2006 By Liam Lahey

The additional companies would help bolster the industry association's profile and its newly unveiled inaugural Benchmark Survey, officials said. Moreover, the TPSA recently introduced The Service 50, an aggregation and analysis of publicly reported financial data, with a focus on trends in services revenues, margins, and contributions to total corporate revenue.

"This is a truly exciting time in the industry, and we feel TPSA's growth is mirrored by the maturing of the professional services industry itself. To see the varied business models that are represented by our members, and to know that this collaboration will ultimately increase successful implementation and adoption of technology by customers, is really what's driving us all to move forward," said Thomas Lah, TPSA executive director. "We're getting larger players involved, by they software or hardware companies or large VARs. And this is what will help us as we move into the next category -- benchmarking the technology industry in terms of the professional services business."

TPSA will hold its first conference April 9-11 in San Diego. At that time, Lah said preliminary results from the Benchmark Survey would be revealed.

Members and non-members alike are invited to participate in the survey. And though the goal is to encourage non-member companies to become TPSA members, there is still value for those firms that wish to remain on the outside.

"This is an important step for the industry with a broader data set . . . we're aiming to solidify the industry data set for technological professional services and this is not data anyone can get publicly," he said. "This isn't necessarily a question of 'direct' or 'in-direct' (for vendors), but rather it's determining the mix of the two."

The goal of the survey is to provide an unparalleled view of the tech pro services industry from all perspectives. In essence, the results should help answer daunting questions for what Lah called "primary product providers" to determine how to grow one's business in conjunction with one's professional services business.

To that end, TPSA launched three industry task forces:

*Best Practice Accounting Principles (focused on the challenges of establishing vendor specific objective evidence for service offerings and adhering to revenue recognition regulations);

*Intellectual Asset Management (establishing a framework for best practices in asset management within professional service organizations);

*Economic Impact Analysis (establish a set of metrics professional service organizations can use to define the total positive economic impact of the professional services organization).

"We want to calculate the total economic impact of the services business on a technology company . . . so our first task force set out to create metrics to help quantify that impact," he explained. "The second task force deals with competition. More direct providers are becoming aggressive with professional services and we also need to look at the impacts of globalization such as offshore organizations moving upstream.

"The third task force looks at the new genre of on-demand providers with subscription services."

TPSA's aim is to help the professional services industry grow as it drives to meet a critical information gap in the industry and in turn empower companies' respective professional services organizations to better serve the needs of their individual customers, while providing improved efficiencies and operations, officials said.

"Joining TPSA will allow NCR to collaborate with other service providers to identify and address industry trends and further explore industry best practices, which will benefit our valued customers," said Dave Klumb, vice president of NCR's Teradata Professional Services, in a statement.

Launched in autumn 2005, other TPSA members include BEA Systems, Computer Associates, Convergys, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., GlassHouse Technologies, Hitachi Data Systems, Hyperion Solutions, IKON Office Solutions, Juniper Networks, Mercury Interactive, Mentor Graphics, Parametric Technology Corp., Peregrine Systems, Progress Software, QuickArrow, Salesforce.com, SBI Enteris, Software AG, Sterling Commerce and Sun Microsystems.

For TPSA community resources including industry news, financial trends, and TPSA programs and member benefits, visit www.tpsaonline.com. -30-