I would like to thank the 108 respondents who participated in this year's membership survey. We had the input from 47 integrators, 45 certified integrators and 16 partner members. As I have mentioned in my survey reminders, we value your input and we’ll use it heavily during our upcoming planning and strategy setting process.
Here are a few items I would like to highlight:
- To the question, “How important are these CSIA programs, services or events,” respondents ranked their top three:
1. Best Practices and Benchmarks
2. Annual Executive Conference
3. CSIA Certification
- When we asked, “To what extent you are in agreement with each of [CSIA's three primary] focus points,” we had a relatively high agreement on the first two points, but a somewhat lower score on the third:
1. “Help system integrators be more professional”
90% full agreement, 10% somewhat in agreement
2. “Be a forum for all members to network, train, discuss common issues and share best practices”
81% full agreement, 18% somewhat in agreement
3. “Influence the marketplace so that CSIA Certification becomes preferred by end-user clients”
54% full agreement, 36% somewhat in agreement, 10% not in agreement
Influencing the marketplace remains a challenge to our association in spite of honest past efforts and investments. While influencing remains a very important goal, we may need to look for alternate ways, adjust our timing expectations, and/or reprioritize the investment we decide to make towards this goal. Somewhat related to this point is the comment provided in the survey, and echoed in both the Client Marketing Committee and Certification Task Force, to explicitly show performance improvement due to CSIA certification.
We look forward to our strategic planning process and to addressing these and other issues mentioned in the survey, as well as integrating some very good ideas provided on the forms.
Are you interested in providing additional input or feedback? Please contact me. I welcome your ideas and comments at any time.