Relationship help

Tif. also offers two other services, benchmarking, and help to form strategic supplier relationships. The continuous performance improvement (CPI) benchmarking service is for both enterprise IT and outsourced IT. "It was something the members wanted, and the benchmarking we do can be compared with figures a year later, and can show which relative changes have taken place," says Campbell. "We can show and demonstrate the progress, and allow members to focus on different areas and improve performance. It has been a huge success with the members because of its integrity."

Since it began 12 years ago tif. has evolved, and is now beginning to attract the attention of other departments in organizations that rely heavily on IT, like HR and procurements, according to Campbell, and this illustrates how the perception of the role of IT in business has begun to change. "Both of these departments have a very high IT focus, and in the case of HR recruiting for IT is very different from recruiting for other parts of an organization, says Campbell. "In terms of procurement, effective IT buying is absolutely critical to a business, and people working in procurement want to understand it better."

Campbell says tif. has a very high member retention rate, and relies on word of mouth recommendations from its members. It has a core team, with relationship management and one which runs events, web executives, automated anonymous or named to cater for everyone's needs. Campbell as chairman handles strategy, and the vice chair runs the workshops and operations. "Basically if there is value in a subject area for our members, and demand for it, we will do it. Of course networking opportunities come from this too."

Given the continued consolidation and globalization of corporations, tif.'s evolution has to be linked to the larger international markets, especially as most of its members are large corporate companies with an international interest. So it has begun to work with similar organizations on mainland Europe with, says Campbell some early success. "What we are doing is creating a loose federation of corporate forums across Europe, with EuroCIO as an umbrella organization for individual country forums," says Campbell.