Avasant CEO to address Society for Information Management

Avasant CEO Kevin S. Parikh, Esq. will address the Southern California Chapter of the Society for Information Management's ("SIM") Spring Conference to be held in Los Angeles on June 6, 2007. Avasant is a next generation sourcing consulting company concentrating on tailor-made solutions for organizations that may already be in sourcing contracts for the delivery of IT services or business processes and for those who are considering sourcing to meet their strategic needs. Parikh will join other leading industry experts in addressing the hottest topics in IT today:  Service Oriented Architecture ("SOA"), Human Capital Management and Offshore Outsourcing. Joining Parikh will be Vince Daukas, Designated Specialist from IBM, and Nigel Fenwick, VP and Practice Leader, Forrester Research. SIM is a community of thought leaders who share experiences and rich intellectual capital, and who explore future IT direction. Chapters of SIM are geographically based.  Southern California's Chapter, or S.C.S.I.M., represents Southern California and is one of approximately 30 chapters of SIM worldwide. S.C.S.I.M. conducts a number of important services for its members, including coordinating with SIM International regarding worldwide issues of vital interest to all SIM members and offering local Southern California focused services to S.C.S.I.M. members such as quarterly events hosted in Southern California, CIO roundtable's, new member orientation, member directory, community service activities and so on. S.C.S.I.M. has established the following overall goals & objectives Promote the chapter members' networking opportunities within the local chapter and throughout SIM and SIM International; Provide a chapter environment where all new members feel welcome, and gain value from membership through orientation and other techniques; Provide chapter opportunities for each type of member- CIO, Consultant and Academic to contribute to the overall value of the chapter membership; Allow each member to grow professionally through the critical examination of I.T. trends, challenges, opportunities, and solutions; "Give back" to the community and to our I.S. colleagues inside and outside of Southern California Prior to joining Avasant, Mr. Parikh led the Global Sourcing practice for Gartner Consulting.  Mr. Parikh specializes in IT and business process ("BP") outsourcing, contract and service-level negotiations, strategic management, business risk evaluation and software licensing.  His practice engages in both nearshore and offshore sourcing solutions.  Mr. Parikh is based in Los Angeles, California. His specialized experience includes network, desktop, voice, software, and application development and support agreements.  As an attorney by training, he specializes in negotiating large and complex transactions where he works towards bridging the gaps between legal counsel and business team objectives.  Over his career, Mr. Parikh has been involved in more than 300 outsourcing deals. These transactions have ranged from US$20 million to US$2.5 billion, involving major Tier 1 and Tier 2 service providers (i.e., IBM, EDS, ACS, Wipro, Infosys, Unisys and CGI.