TM Forum today reaffirmed its commitment to solving new challenges faced by service providers in Asia by opening the doors to its largest Management World Asia conference to date with a record-breaking number of attendees and service provider leaders participating. At the same time, the Forum also announced the creation of its first South East Asia Regional Council, an influential group of senior executives from service providers across the region committed to helping TM Forum positively respond to service providers’ business challenges.

Management World Asia 2012, which begins today at the Pan Pacific hotel in Singapore, brings together leaders from the global communications industry to explore how service providers can profit from growth opportunities in the region. With support from Axiata Group, Reliance Communications and PLDT, the conference’s strategic partners, Management World Asia 2012 allows over 400 delegates from more than 50 service providers to connect with leaders in Asia and hear how they are transforming the industry to enable operational efficiency and profit from growth.

In addition, TM Forum confirmed that yesterday in Singapore it held the first meeting of a new South East Asia Regional Council. The new Council, comprising C-level executives from leading service providers in the region, will provide detailed strategic insight into the varied needs of global communication service providers and ensure that TM Forum’s Frameworx suite of standards continues to evolve with the key communications challenges in South East Asia.

The input gained from the South East Asia Regional Council will ultimately influence TM Forum’s
practical initiatives for developing Frameworx, drive industry collaboration including the Forum’s unique Catalyst rapid prototyping model, and continue to grow training and implementation support for service providers in the region.

Members of TM Forum’s South East Asia Regional Council include:

• Bili Batbold, CEO, Unitel Mongolia
• Gil Genio, Head of Globe Business and Business CFU, Globe Telecom
• Mounir Hasrouni, Chief Technology Officer, Wataniya Maldives
• Steve Hopcraft, Chief Technology Officer, Truecorp
• Tony Kalcina, Founder and Executive Director, Clarity
• Lavinia Koh, CFO, Asia-Pacific, Cable & Wireless Worldwide
• Michael Lawrey, Executive Director, Online and Media, Telstra Operations
• Idris Vasi, CEO, DST Group Brunei

TM Forum’s South East Asia Regional Council is one of five regional councils to be established during 2012—the China Regional Council, the first council, met in late 2011. Additional Regional Councils planned for 2012 include India, Middle East and South America, with more to come in 2013.

“Asia is rapidly becoming the leader in addressing the challenge of future growth, with service providers in the region amongst the first to embrace adding value to innovative services for the digital economy. While it is one of the fastest-growing global markets, service providers in Asia are facing serious challenges with rising churn rates and falling average revenues per user for traditional services—similar to the rest of the world,” said Martin Creaner, President and CEO, TM Forum. “The growth in this year’s Management World Asia conference and the newly formed Regional Council highlights TM Forum’s commitment to the region and the commitment of our members to collaboratively solving common challenges.”