"[Processing the CISIQ application] is not as easy as everyone expected," Chiu explained. "But, we have gone through a good education journey to allow things to run smoothly from now on."

Although HKPC was assigned by MII to handle applications from local SIs, it was not able to start the process before going through training which lasted for four months. Chiu agreed the training took longer than expected, but more challenging was bridging the business differences.

According to MII, each applicant must achieve a certain size of accumulated project transactions-for example, to apply for Level-3 certification, companies need to accumulate at least RMB40 million (US$5 million) of business.

However, SI business in China includes selling hardware and equipment, which helps boost project sizes significantly. In China, if a SI project deal is RMB100,000, it is likely RMB70,000 of it was spent in hardware, Chiu said. For a similar sized project in Hong Kong, the total amount would be only RMB30,000.

"Local SI businesses only focus on system integration, configuration and services," he said. "Most SIs aren't involved in the business of selling hardware or cabling the network."