IBM Collaboration Solutions Awards 2013
The IBM Collaboration Solutions Awards honor winners and finalists who have dedicated their time and energy to building innovative solutions using IBM Collaboration Solutions software (social collaboration, social content management and social analytics) to help their customers become a Social Business.
Winners and finalists were recognized at Connect 2013.
Better Business Results Through Social Business in the Cloud
Category Definition:
This award will be presented to an IBM Business Partner who offers the most innovative Social Business Solution in the Cloud. Preference will be given to Business Partners who have helped their clients become a social business in the cloud. Submissions could deliver a high value business solution integrating any of the SmartCloud for Social Business services or they can highlight a customer success that demonstrates Social Business in the Cloud.
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to solutions that:
- Use SmartCloud for Social Business.
- Demonstrate overall business value.
- Leverage social business capabilities and third-party applications from the cloud.
- Demonstrate enhancements to boost end-user and business effectiveness and efficiency by leveraging the cloud
Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references
WINNER: Intelecom UK Ltd. (United Kingdom)
Intelecom UK Ltd. has developed a Conferencing Application to make integrated outbound voice conferencing available directly from IBM SmartCloud for Social Business. This is currently being used in a university environment to extend lecture participation to remote students. Through integration of their intelligent voice network into IBM SmartCloud, Intelecom solved a client need - to unite students across the world with shared resources & a communication platform.
Finalists:
ASI Informatique (France)www.asi-informatique.fr
SBS SEIDOR (Spain)www.seidor.es
Innovation in Social Business Application Development
Category Definition:
This award will be presented to a Business Partner who provides the best solution for creating an Exceptional Customer Experience or a Smarter Workforce through the use of IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) application development tools. The offering must leverage new technology innovations such as the Social Business Toolkit, XPages Extension Library, Web Experience Factory builders, or Mobile Controls. Submissions for this award should be solutions that leverage these new technologies to address a specific business need by:
- Enabling interactions with customers or employees through online social networks (on-premise, cloud, or public social network sites)
- Enhancing situational awareness through analysis of social data, or
- Supporting contextual collaboration by integrating social capabilities into existing or new business applications leveraging OpenSocial gadgets and creating an embedded experience
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to developers new to Social Business application development with solutions that:
- Leverage multiple IBM Collaboration Solutions development tools and products (e.g., IBM Connections, IBM Notes and Domino- especially Domino Designer, XWork Server and XPages, or the IBM Web Experience - especially IBM Web Experience Factory, and IBM Worklight entitlements to Web Experience).
- Support multiple types of devices, including rich client, web, mobile, smartphone or tablet
- Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references.
WINNER: ISW Development Pty Ltd (Australia)
Kudos Badges showcases how to leverage IBM Connections in a unique way to deliver a recognition and reward system that provides motivation for social adoption and use. The use of Open Social gadgets as well as iWidgets provide the adopting organization great flexibility for integration that includes IBM Connections, IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition Beta. The analytics capability provides means to tailor the organization's adoption strategy and promote the benefits of Social Business.
www.kudosbadges.comFinalists:
INTRANET Software & Consulting GmbH (Austria)www.intranet-consulting.at
GEDYS IntraWare GmbH (Germany)
www.gedys-intraware.com
Create a Smarter Workforce - New Award
Category Definition:
This award will be presented to a Business Partner who has leveraged social business technologies to build and/or deploy a social business solution or platform that helps organizations of all sizes to create a more effective workforce. Business Partners should make a compelling case that their customers are experiencing improved workforce productivity, and are changing the way people work, by using IBM social business capabilities including one or more of the following: IBM Intranet Experience Suite, IBM Connections Suite, IBM Notes and Domino, social networking, social analytics, or social content management. Preference will be given to Business partners who provide documentation of significant measurable business results from a front-office business process perspective that can be derived from the use of these social capabilities.
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to solutions that:
- Demonstrate the overall business value of creating a smarter workforce with documented quantifiable business results from a front office business process perspective.
- Show the unique innovative usage of IBM social business capabilities, especially in combination with other IBM capabilities, to transform business processes and applications such as Human Capital Management, Marketing, Sales, Customer Care and Support, Product Development and Finance.
- Address business processes in Banking, Insurance, Electronics, Telecommunications, Retail, Government and Healthcare – although other industries will be considered.
- Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references.
WINNER: Gemini Systems (United States)
The Gemini Systems Wakefern LINK, a comprehensive Smarter Workforce solution in the retail industry, enables exceptional collaboration between employees, increased productivity, and improved sentiment and insights, to drive value to the business and its customers. It harnesses the power of the IBM Platform for Social Business (including IBM Connections, IBM Notes and Domino, IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM Web Content Manager), as well as other key IBM products (including IBM DB2 Enterprise Server, IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator, IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere), powered by IBM Power Hardware.
Wakefern LINK is fully mobile and features easy content management and delivery, with social capabilities integrated throughout. This allows a centrally-managed retail enterprise to effectively manage 260 distributed retail stores, with agility and excellence. All employees are able to share and promote targeted content, share insights within communities, and collaborate, to best drive revenue and serve the customer.
Key benefits include:
- Personalized portals for retail associates and delivering the most relevant content, empowering the employee
- Targeted content for specific markets, freeing up employee focus on serving the customer
- Elimination of redundancy in messaging, allowing greater productivity and efficiency
- Improved management of the enterprise with open collaboration between the home office and distributed network for stores
WakeFern LINK is a shining example of how social technology can enable employees to work smarter through open collaboration, focusing attention where it is needed (i.e., the customer), collecting and responding to key insights, and ultimately driving greater business value.
Finalists:
Base22 (United States)www.base22.com
Social Smart Software - an iEnterprises Company (United States)www.isocialsmart.com
Create an Exceptional Customer Experience - New Award
Category Definition:
This award recognizes Business Partners who help their customers create and deliver an exceptional customer experience that is engaging, and interactive, with relevant content to help drive brand loyalty advocacy, and revenue by building deeper relationships with their customers. Business Partners can leverage existing or new solution components to deliver compelling customer experiences, including but not limited to, IBM Customer Experience Suite, IBM Intranet Experience suite, IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM Web Content Manager, IBM Web Experience Factory, and IBM Forms.
Submissions for this award should also make a compelling case that the solution leverages cross-IBM social capabilities (social networking, social analytics, and social content management) and delivers measurable business outcomes in the area of order conversion, self-service, new applications, and repeat purchases.
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to solutions that:
- Demonstrate the overall business value of creating exceptional customer experiences with documented quantifiable business results from a line of business perspective
- Are built on existing or new IBM Web Experience software solutions: IBM Customer Experience Suite, IBM Intranet Experience suite, IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM Web Content Manager, IBM Web Experience Factory, IBM Forms
- Embed IBM social, web experience and other cross-IBM capabilities into existing business processes and applications such as Human Resources, Marketing, Sales, Finance, etc.
- Address business processes in Banking, Insurance, Electronics, Telecommunications, Retail, Government and Healthcare – although other industries will be considered
- Are unique in the innovative utilization of IBM social capabilities and other cross-IBM capabilities
- Leverage the Web Experience NOW solutions methodology offering and its industry templates
- Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references.
WINNER: TECLA.IT (Italy)
Tecla's solution for Amadori deploys web site that have been integrated with the social networks to communicate more effectively with consumers. By asking the site users to share data in order to receive regular newsletters, enter online competitions, download applications and sign up for events, Amadori compiled a database of consumer profiles. Additionally, Amadori uses Facebook Insights technology to obtain metrics regarding its Facebook page in terms of new fans and favorite content. It also uses Google Analytics features to evaluate interest and degree of use of the proposed features. However, to turn all available data into marketing insights, Amadori capitalizes on IBM SPSS Data Collection’s text mining technology to capture and analyze unstructured, textual data as well as to use the text mining technology for sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis is a technique that uses sophisticated statistical models to assess whether given text (in this case, a consumer’s comment on an Amadori product) expresses a positive, negative or neutral opinion. In more advanced deployments, it can also be used to assess the emotional state of the writer (happy, sad, angry and more). The software captures and analyzes conversations that happen on the social network sites, blogs and forums. It isn’t dependent solely on keyword search, but analyzes syntax of languages, connotations and even slang to reveal hidden speech patterns that accompany attitudes and opinions around purchasing behavior.
The solution demonstrates all the key characteristics of an Exceptional Web Experience:
The company implemented IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager software running on BladeCenter HS22 server hardware housed in BladeCenter H Chassis. Together with Tecla, Amadori used Web Content Manager software to create and manage content for four product-based mini websites (minisites) and integrated the sites with Facebook and YouTube, providing consumers with direct access to the company’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. The website template used for the production of one minisite was reused for the subsequent sites, saving the company production time and associated costs.
Key highlights of the success:
- Boosts the company’s ability to monitor and learn about its brand health in real time by 100 percent using sentiment analysis
- Improves the company’s social media presence by 100 percent using real-time marketing insights, gaining 45,000 Facebook fans in less than one year
- Establishes direct communications with the target segment by 100 percent through web integration with social media
This solution is the winner of the SMAU's Award for Innovation ICT Business Intelligence and the SMAU's Award for Marketing & Sales.
Finalists:
Prolifics (United States)
Ascendant Technology (United States)
Extending Social Collaboration to Mobile Devices
Category Definition:
This award recognizes a Business Partner who delivers the most innovative Social Business solution to any mobile device, including tablets, unlocking creativity everywhere. Business Partners must demonstrate how their mobile application(s) embed many IBM social capabilities and other cross-IBM capabilities (social collaboration, content, and analytics) to help their customers, partners and employees become more productive by accessing information anywhere and anytime. Submissions for this award should make a compelling business case that their social business solution(s) on any mobile devices help their clients become a social business while delivering better business outcomes. Preference will be given to Business Partners that are able to showcase social capabilities in a social networking and/or industry context.
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to solutions that:
- Deliver across rich, mobile interfaces on a variety of mobile devices, including tablets
- Leverage latest social business technologies to design their mobile applications (e.g., XPages, IBM Web Experience Factory, IBM Worklight entitlements to IBM Web Experience, etc.)
- Are new and different solutions not submitted in previous years
- Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references.
WINNER: Teamstudio, Inc. (United States)
Teamstudio Unplugged allows mobile access to IBM Notes and Domino based Enterprise applications - with or without connectivity. It provides a familiar Notes client experience with an optimized UI for intuitive mobile use on iOS, Android and Blackberry devices. Enterprise applications can be mobilized using IBM Domino Designer/XPages tools and then pushed out to the mobile devices through Unplugged, a free client side application that is available from Google Play, iTunes Appstore or Blackberry World. The advantage of allowing access to applications while offline, in areas with low/no internet connectivity, sets Unplugged apart from mobile web applications that perform a similar function, since data captured from offline actions is preserved and then used once connectivity is regained with no need for data re-entry; A usability and efficiency plus! Additional efficiencies provided by Unplugged include one-time authentication at initial configuration (no need to authenticate with each session) and no need for additional hardware; the Unplugged server side application runs on an IBM Domino server (Utility, Enterprise or XWork) that would exist in a Notes and Domino Enterprise organization. Customers can preserve and extend their IBM Notes and Domino investment to mobile with Unplugged and recognize notable ROI while addressing a real business need for their organization!
The straightforward mobile experience for end-users, combined with offline support and built-in administrative capabilities for seamless device approval, access control management that relies on the existing Domino security model with no additional management required and easy application deployment make Unplugged a unique and compelling mobile solution in this award category. See demo here.
Finalists:
e-Jan Networks Co. (Japan)
iEnterprises (United States)
Distinguished Business Achievement Awards (per IOT)
Category Definition:
The Distinguished Business Achievement Award honors the top IBM PartnerWorld Business Partners from each of the 7 major regions of the world. Winners must demonstrate increased revenue attainment and loyalty, along with the ability to open new regional markets, and to maintain a positive stature in the Business Partner community. Business Partners considered in this space significantly impact IBM Collaboration Solutions’ position in the marketplace and will be considered rising stars amongst their peers.
NORTH AMERICA:
Winner: Prolifics (United States)
Prolifics, headquartered in New York, with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia had a stellar year in 2012 with significant year-to-year growth. Their success can be attributed to their dedication to meeting the unique needs of each customer. They have secured new marquis accounts by honing their skills to deliver complete solutions that leverage both the IBM Platform for Social Business and IBM WebSphere Portal capabilities. This has allowed their customers to realize the benefits of both a smarter workforce and increased customer satisfaction. Prolifics have the sales and technical expertise to create and close deals in any size account. They have increased overall marketing efforts and invest time and money in local territories to generate demand, progress the deal, and go for close. It is with great satisfaction that we award Prolifics the Distinguished Business Achievement Award.
Finalists:
CDW (United States)
Mainline Information Systems (United States)
LATIN AMERICA:
Winner: Masterdom Consultoria e Informática (Brazil)
Since 1988, in the Brazilian market Masterdom has been a certified IBM Premier Business Partner working with large companies from various sectors of the economy, with special emphasis in government. Masterdom has been showing year-to-year growth, especially in 2012. They have contributed a 30% year-to-year growth selling almost all our IBM Collaboration Solutions products, including Sametime Unified Telephony). They have sponsored Social Business Roadshows to generate new leads leveraging the SWG Co-Marketing program. They have also invested into the General Business market segment, by hiring a few sales people. We expect Masterdom to continue to play an important role in continuing to influence major deals in Brazil in 2013.
Finalists:
Synopsis S.A. (Peru)
MEVE Soluciones, S.A. de C.V. (Mexico)
ASIA PACIFIC:
Winner: ISW Development Pty Ltd (Australia)
ISW is an Australian IBM Premier Business Partner that has significantly grown their year on year IBM cross-brand revenue. ISW has been a worldwide thought leader in the adoption and usage of IBM Connections and in particular released the award winning Kudos Badges for IBM Connections in 2012. Kudos Badges has had a major impact with IBM Connections customers around the world including Sogeti, CEMEX, Leaseplan, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Cochlear Ltd., and many others. ISW's cloud offering around IBM Connections has helped to drive new sales of IBM Connections internationally and ISW's extensive knowledge across the IBM Collaboration Solutions solution set enables our joint clients take advantage of the full range of Collaboration and Social Software capabilities. ISW has also continued to invest significantly in ICS focused marketing initiatives such as the ISW Ignition for IBM Connections campaign. ISW has grown its national team and opened a new office in Brisbane to add to the existing Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart locations. ISW is working towards adding an Adelaide office in 2013. ISW won the Tasmanian Government IT Export Award primarily for the development and export of ICS focused solutions.
Finalists:
Lyv Connections Pte Ltd (Singapore)
Startin Point Pte Ltd (Singapore)
JAPAN:
Winner: Kanematsu Electronics Ltd. (Japan)
Kanematsu Electronis Ltd. (KEL), based in Tokyo Japan, experienced a great success with the launch of Social Business in 2012. KEL started with using IBM Connections internally, then they gained some valuable experience implementing Social Business in the enterprise, such as "how to make the end-users leverage social" "how to make the executives agree to buy IBM Connections”, "how to start with a successful adoption plan”, "how to stay engaged throughout the deployment”, and they provide these professional services to help their clients be successful. The KEL's "Business Social Starter Pack” is a starter kit for brand-new social users, including IBM Connections licenses, virtual machine installation, demonstration, training, and consulting services which helped brand-new IBM Connections clients to become a Social Business. KEL captured a lot of great opportunities from their Social Business Seminars throughout the year. They came through delivering some deals which will be published as IBM Connections case studies next year. KEL is the most important Social Business provider in Japan and will lead with Social business and IBM Collaboration Solutions for the next decade.
http://www.kel.co.jp/english/index.html
Finalists:
SCSK Corporation (Japan)
Ricoh IT Solutions (Japan)
EUROPE:
Winner: GIS AG (Gesellschaft für InformationsSysteme AG) (Germany)
The solution GIS Collaboration Center (GCC) integrates the most important products of the IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) portfolio to a software appliance that is installable within three days and from then on ready to run customer projects and productive environments. GIS has just launched their latest version of GCC based on IBM WebSphere Portal 8 and IBM Connections 4. In Germany GIS is partnering very closely with other Business Partners to sell their GCC Portal-based solution. This capability gives GIS a unique selling point and much shorter sales cycles. GIS is very proud of many new customers this year and many of them are migrating to the new release in the next 2 months! GIS also provides their GCC solution as an ASL Cloud solution as well and has been partnering with SugarCRM and Ascendant Technology. The SaaS model has been fully implemented and deployed and is proving to be a successful business model. This is a very cutting-edge, and future-oriented approach addressing the cloud space in a very smart manner.
Finalists:
Atea AS (Norway)
ASI Informatique (France)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE:
Winner: Softline (Russian Federation)
Softline, has been in the Russian software industry since 1993, and is currently one of the leaders in the RCIS Information Technology (IT) sector. It conducts business in 23 countries (65 cities) and counts more than 2000 employees worldwide. Softline has been one of the top IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) Business Partners for the last 5 years, experiencing extraordinary business growth in 2012 for Central and Eastern Europe. Softline's primary business objective is to deliver high impact solutions for their customers' business needs leveraging their information technologies know-how and experience. Over the years, working with industry leaders and many other software vendors, they clearly understand the technological trends and have sharpened their vision of the future success of information technology.
Finalists:
QUMAK-Sekom (Poland)
www.qumak.pl/english_brief.html
CROZ d.o.o. (Croatia)
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA:
Winner: Knowledge Dimension (South Africa)
Knowledge Dimension specialises in solutions which enable organisations to provide exceptional Web experiences for all stakeholders, both internal and external, and to encourage innovation by taking advantage of social networking opportunities on offer.
An IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) business partner since 1991, Knowledge Dimension is recognised as a market leader by IBM and was the first South African company to win a prestigious Lotus Beacon Award in 1997. Knowledge Dimension is an end-to-end service provider of solutions and services spanning IBM Notes and Domino, and all the collaborative technologies in the ICS solutions portfolio, including IBM Connections, Web Experience, and has enabled, and continues to enable, organisations to maximise their human capital potential and deliver real business value and return on investment.
Since making a strategic decision to move into the IBM WebSphere Portal 3 years ago, Knowledge Dimension has assigned people specifically to cover ICS and doubled in size and experienced license revenue and margin growth in excess of 500% by subscribing to, and taking advantage of, the various IBM programmes on offer. Today Knowledge Dimension is positioned as a strategic ICS business partner whose value-add is recognized not only by IBM, but also by the client base who experience working with them. Due to their expertise and business drive IBM is recognising Knowledge Dimension as the market leader as endorsed by our 'IBM Distinguished Business Achievement Award' at IBM Connect 2013. Knowledge Dimension is no stranger to this award as this would be the second time they win it, their first time win of this prestigious award was at Lotusphere 2011.
Finalists:
Net Solutions (Nigeria)
Comparex (Algeria)
Innovative Leadership by a VAD
Category Definition:
This category recognizes a single IBM distributor who has demonstrated leadership in several key areas. The distributor will have demonstrated revenue growth year-to-year, and executed innovative and effective marketing campaigns to drive demand for IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) products. Additionally, this distributor will have expanded their IBM Collaboration Solutions and IBM Web Experience business via targeted partner recruitment, partner skill development and utilization of IBM channel marketing programs.
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to those distributors that have leveraged IBM Collaboration Solutions and IBM Web Experience software (e.g., IBM WebSphere Portal) to run their business.
WINNER: Tech Data GmbH & Co.OHG, Azlan (Germany)
Tech Data Azlan’s dedicated IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS) team continues their outstanding support for ICS Resellers that grew revenue across the ICS portfolio with double-digit growth in new licenses and renewals, as well as double digit growth in ASL new licenses in 2012.
They pursued growth with existing and new ICS Business Partners. One highlight in 2012, TD Azlan implemented an impressive IBM UC2 recruitment and enablement campaign. The target group consists of 500 competitive business partners not yet doing IBM Software business. The business partners were addressed by an IBM UC2 value proposition approach. The focus was on UC2 market development and growth potential by expert studies, value and case studies of IBM UC2 solutions and benefits for a new business partner. The UC2 campaign was a multi-touch campaign with following marketing instruments: UC2 Microsite, mailing, newsletter and telemarketing in combination with a call to action.
Tech Data Azlan uses the entire IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio of products to run their business. They drove over 100 new Lotus / ICS certifications of their partners while increasing their own skills. They enabled and worked closely with Business Partners for on-time readiness for the new “Messaging & Collaboration” authorization group. They are a Prometric authorized testing site, and uniquely support their BPs with their “Azlan SVI Service,” “Azlan Renewal Dashboard,” and use IBM SW Value Package for implementing an ICS Social Software initiative solution in the Azlan Technology Center.
Tech Data Azlan drove a variety of innovative marketing demand generation campaigns with its Business Partners that included IBM ICS roadshows, events and webcasts and telemarketing campaigns. At the “Azlan All Night Long,” Business Partners had the opportunity to test, install and uninstall IBM Virtual Desktop for Smart Business. Azlan is also joining the Lotus/ICS community in Lotus Greenhouse – an excellent platform - to gain insights and best practices.
Rich in examples of customer references and success stories, we commend Tech Data Azlan on their excellence in serving their Lotus/ICS Business Partners and demonstrating outstanding and comprehensive support for IBM Software.
Finalists:
Open Computer Solutions (Russia)
Arrow ECS (United States)
Best of Show and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Award
Category Definition:
The combined Best of Show and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) award recognizes those visionary IBM Business Partners who are leading the technology charge by utilizing cross-IBM Software Group (SWG) capabilities in innovative, leading-edge, and exciting new ways. These ground-breaking solutions are positioned to be drivers in tomorrow's new markets like Social Business, fostering innovation, and at an ingenuity level that stands out above their peers. These Business Partners have an exhibit on the IBM Connect 2013 Product Showcase floor to demonstrate how their broad set of solutions helped their clients transform their business into a Social Business and improve business results. Business Partners are invited to provide us with client examples / scenarios, and preferably customer references for these solution(s).
Selection Criteria:
Special consideration will be given to solutions that:
- Are demonstrable
- Are deployed in a production environment, and are public references.
WINNER: ISW Development Pty Ltd (Australia)
Kudos Badges for IBM Connections is a reward and recognition solution that can transform and accelerate organisations usage of IBM Connections by encouraging users to leverage the full range of social services and drive user adoption and behaviour. By leveraging gamification, peer-to-peer recognition, and powerful analytics, Kudos Badges can ensure organisations drive both initial and sustained user adoption and dramatically improve ROI for IBM Connections.
Finalists:
Foresee GmbH (Germany)
Trilog Group