Message from the CEO

jose200.jpgAs we reach the end of the year we look back at key milestones:

  • 2018 was a very good year for most SIs, in particular for those in the US. I base this on conversations I’ve had throughout the year with many SIs and from the business sentiment statistics we gather with our CSIA EZ Stats (for 81% of the respondents “things are looking up”). In case you haven’t seen the EZ Stats monthly results, I welcome you to visit and participate.
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    CSIA Board during our value proposition design workshop, part of our recent yearly strategic planning in-person Board meeting. This meeting took place at the offices of our new association management company in Chicago.

  • The 2018 CSIA Executive Conference was a resounding success with 599 attendees (this exceeded our previous record by 61) and very positive post event feedback.
  • We delivered two successful SI Regional events in 2018: Chicago and Houston.
  • CSIA transitioned to a new Association management company (Kellen) in September. Our staff is now located in Oakbrook Terrace, a suburb of Chicago. The transition has progressed smoothly and I have been very impressed by our new staff. I’m confident that this transition will allow us to take CSIA to the next level.
  • We are on track to deliver the 2019 Executive Conference in Asheville, North Carolina. I have visited the site and was impressed.
    I will admit that not too long ago I didn’t know too much about this very cool location. I expect this to be the case of many SIs.
    We hope to educate our members on Asheville and all it offers on the registration site that we have now opened.
  • The position of CSIA Industry Director was created and filled in late November. Read the article below for more information on Lisa Richter. 
  • The CSIA Board, part of our staff and I met in October at the office of our new association management company in the outskirts of Chicago. After three years of execution on our past strategy we were due for a thorough review. At our meeting we dedicated time to revisit our value proposition to our various stakeholders. We followed the approach outlined in the book “Value Proposition Design” by Alex Osterwalder and others.
The longer-term goals for the strategy can be summarized in the following way:
  • Continue to build a strong, nimble, relevant and resilient organization. (Internal Focus):
    • Embrace change and adapt to the rapidly changing market to help SIs take advantage of the emerging opportunities (e.g. IIoT).
    • Develop the next generation of leaders: Actively welcome the younger generations and encourage them to take lead roles in our association.
    • Continue to improve internal processes and reporting.
  • Gain wide recognition as the global system integration industry reference, thought leader, and the “go-to-resource” for all things related to management excellence for SI companies. (External focus):
    • Reach beyond controls and embrace a diverse SI universe.
    • Become the main provider of business management and Best Practice knowledge to the SI community through the executive conference, peer exchange, training, etc.
    • Establish the CSIA Certification as the recognized badge for SI excellence.
The strategy goes into much more detail with short term initiatives with a progress tracking dashboard. I would like to highlight one initiative: A dedicated effort to increase the value proposition to smaller SIs that we will be referring to as “Emerging SIs” ($1-3M revenue and 5-20 employees). We estimate that this segment could add 100 additional US SI members. We consider that this particular segment may derive significant value from their membership through self-serve training and material on our website. 
 
We will be working in 2019 to develop a specific plan. We consider that this effort will also boost international membership, as it allows them to better leverage self-serve web based offerings, circumventing big time differences (an issue for live webinars) and the significant cost to attend our conference in person, something that may not be feasible for many in the Emerging SI segment. We look forward to 2019 and our Executive Conference in 2019. 
 
Happy Holidays and best wishes to all!