Business Development, Customer Service, and Sales Achievements, Professionals, and More May Be Nominated

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued a call for entries for the 2021 (15th annual) Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

Eligible nominees include departments, teams, and professionals from around the world who work in customer service, contact center, business development, and sales. New products and services and solution providers used by those professionals are also eligible. The 2021 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2019.

The early-bird entry deadline with reduced entry fees is October 14, 2020. The final entry deadline is November 12, but late entries will be accepted through January 13, 2021 with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced in mid-January, and the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be revealed during a gala awards banquet on March 5 (health and safety conditions permitting) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 150 sales awards, customer service awards, business development awards, new product awards, and solution provider awards categories. Entrants may submit any number of nominations to any number of categories, which include:

•         Sales Individual categories such as Senior Sales Executive of the Year and Sales Representative of the Year
•         Sales Team categories like Global Sales Team of the Year and Online Sales Team of the Year
•         Sales Achievement categories such as Sales Turnaround of the Year and Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year
•         Sales Distinction categories in 14 industry groupings
•         Customer Service and Contact Center Individual categories such as Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year and Customer Service Leader of the Year
•         Customer Service and Contact Center Team categories like Contact Center of the Year and Back Office Customer Service Team of the Year
•         Customer Service and Contact Center Achievement categories such as e-Commerce Customer Service Award and Award for Innovation in Customer Service
•         Customer Service Department categories in 12 industry groupings
•        Customer Service Success categories in five industry groupings
•         New Product and Service categories like Best New Business Intelligence Solution and Best New Marketing Solution
•         Solution Provider categories such as Sales Consulting Practice of the Year and Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year
•        Business Development categories such as Business Development Professional of the Year and Business Development Achievement of the Year - Hospitality & Leisure

New this year, for all categories the submission requirements have been simplified, offering the choice to submit a short video or brief answers to several directed questions.

New categories for 2021 include six free-to-enter COVID-19 response categories that will recognize outstanding efforts by business development, customer service, and sales professionals to address the pandemic's impact on their organizations, teammates, customers and communities.

Interested in entering the 2021 Stevie Awards 

2021 will see the return of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a popular feature of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in which the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service, from among all finalist nominations in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories.

Winners of the 2020 edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service included American Airlines, Barclays, Carbonite, Cisco, Clarabridge, Cricket Wireless, Cvent, Delta Vacations, DHL Express, GoDaddy, Mailchimp, OneWest Bank, SAP, Wells Fargo Treasury Management, VIZIO Inc., and more.

The 2021 competition will be judged by more than 150 professionals around the world.

Businesses Honored for Achievements Amidst COVID-19

High-achieving organizations and executives around the world have been recognized as Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie® Award winners in The 17th Annual International Business Awards®, the world's only international, all-encompassing business awards program.

Nicknamed the Stevies from the Greek word for "crowned," the awards will be presented at a virtual awards ceremony on Tuesday, December 1.

Tickets for the event are on sale now at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie winners were selected from more than 3,800 nominations about 200 fewer than last year, from organizations in more than 60 nations. “Given the extraordinary circumstances in which businesses and other organizations around the world have operated over the past six months, we’re gratified by the number of entries the IBAs received this year and the amazing number of stories of continued business success, individual heroism and selflessness, and increased commitment to the health and safety of employees, customers, and communities,” said Stevie Awards President Maggie Gallagher.  

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie winners were selected from more than 3,800 nominations. “Given the extraordinary circumstances in which businesses and other organizations around the world have operated over the past six months, we’re gratified by the number of entries the IBAs received this year and the amazing number of stories of continued business success.”

All organizations worldwide are eligible to compete in The International Business Awards, and can submit entries in a wide range of categories, including management awards, company of the year awards, marketing awards, public relations awards, customer service awards, human resources awards, new product awards, IT awards, web site awards, and more. 

More than 250 executives worldwide participated on 13 juries this year to determine the Stevie winners.

LLYC, a global communications and public affairs consulting firm headquartered in Madrid, Spain won nine Gold Stevie Awards, more than any other organization in the competition.

Other top winners of Gold Stevie Awards include Jeunesse Global (Lake Mary, Florida USA) with eight, Yapı Kredi Bank (Istanbul, Turkey) with seven, PJ Lhuillier, Inc (Makati City, Philippines) with six, and BURSALI (Bursa, Turkey), Mayen (Istanbul, Turkey), Pan American Energy (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Samsara (San Francisco, California USA), and Thai Life Insurance Plc. (Bangkok, Thailand) with five each.

The top winner of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevies overall is Turkey’s Yapı Kredi Bank, with 20.  Other multiple winners of note are LLYC (18), Ooredoo Group, Qatar and globally (16), Thai Life Insurance (14), PJ Lhuillier, Inc (13), Jeunesse Global (12), Makers Nutrition, Hauppauge, New York, USA (12), Melco Resorts & Entertainment, Cotai, Macao (10), and Türkiye İş Bankası, Istanbul (10).

A complete list of all 2020 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners by category is available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

During the week of 21 September the winners of the Best of the IBA Awards, five best-of-competition prizes, will be announced. Winners will be determined by a tally of the total number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevies won by organizations, and will be honored on 1 December.

The Middle East Stevie Awards, sponsored by the Ras Al Khaimah Chamber of Commerce & Industry, is an international business awards competition open to all organizations in 17 nations in the Middle East and North Africa. The focus of the awards is recognizing innovation in all its forms.

For the past 18 years the Stevie awards programs have recognized excellence in business worldwide. Each year the eight Stevie awards competitions received more than 12,000 nominations from organizations of all types and sizes in more than 70 nations.

More than 500 nominations were reviewed in the Middle East Stevie Awards judging process this year by more than 90 professionals worldwide whose average scores determined the winners.

2020 Middle East Stevie Award winners included:

• Vodafone, Istanbul, Turkey
• Telemart, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
• Digitallica, Uskudar, Turkey
• Spiral Click Web Technologies, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Alandalus Property Company, Al Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Virgin Mobile UAE - Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Cisco Systems India, Bangalore
• Ooredoo Oman, Muscat, Oman
• Coca-Cola Içecek, Istanbul, Turkey
• …and many more

Two Grand (best of show) Stevie Awards were conferred:

• Boehringer Ingelheim, Istanbul, Turkey, is the winner of the Grand Stevie for Organization of the Year.  The pharmaceutical giant’s six Gold, two Silver, and one Bronze Stevie wins are tops in the 2020 competition.
• Dubai Health Authority’s nomination “Diagnostic & Prognostic liquid biopsy biomarkers for Asthma,” a Gold Stevie winner for Innovation in Medical/Dental, received the highest overall average score from the judges, of all nominations in the 2020 competition, and thus wins the Grand Stevie Award for Highest-Rated Nomination of the Year.

On August 25 winners were celebrated at a virtual Stevie Awards ceremony which was broadcast to winners and their guests. During the awards ceremony, the Stevie Awards shared videos about the award-winning organizations followed by acceptance speeches, messages from Stevie Awards judges, sponsors, and special guests.

Nashwa Al-Ruwaini gave the keynote speech to congratulate Stevie Award winners and appreciate their hard work over the past year, and especially over the past few months. Nashwa Al-Ruwaini is an Egyptian producer and media personality. She has been called the "Oprah Winfrey of the Arab World".

Al-Ruwaini told Stevie winners “Innovation prevails in times of crisis. The world we knew drastically changed overnight with the outbreak of COVID-19. Often in business, you need to come up with new tactics to preserve and maintain your vision. Companies, entrepreneurs, governments, and citizens have proved how capable humans are of innovating during times of crisis.”

It was announced during the ceremony that the 2021 awards will begin accepting nominations September 15, and it will do so with a new name. The new name of the competition will be the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, to better represent the 17 nations covered in the awards.

“We aimed to honor organizations and individuals across the region. This year we received more than 500 nominations, which is very impressive for our first-year event. We can’t wait to see what 2021 holds for the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards,” said Stevie Awards President Maggie Gallagher.

Interested in entering the 2021 Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards?

Bank of America and Tata Consultancy Services Names as Top Winners

Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the 2020 (fifth annual) Stevie® Awards for Great Employers, an international competition, were announced on August 18. The awards recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.    

It has been announced today that the organization that won the Grand Stevie Award for Most Honored Organization of the Year is Tata Consultancy Services, worldwide, which earned 40 points with six Gold, eight silver, and four Bronze Stevie wins. Organization of the Year goes to the organization with the most award points, with each Gold Stevie win counting for three points, each Silver Stevie win for two points, and each Bronze Stevie for one-and-a-half points.

The Grand Stevie Award for the Highest-Rated Nomination of the Year goes to The Academy at Bank of America, the Gold Stevie®-winning nomination for Best Strategy for a Corporate Learning University from Bank of America, Charlotte, North Carolina USA.

More than 700 nominations from organizations from 23 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 90 professionals worldwide, acting as judges. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize achievement in many facets of the workplace. Categories include:

•     Employer of the Year
•    HR Achievements
•    HR Individual Awards
•    HR Team Categories
•    Solution Provider Awards
•    COVID-19 Response
•    More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering the 2021 Stevie Awards for Great Employers?

-GAVS Tech’s ZIF platform prevents 50 to 80 cyberattacks per day for major NYC hospital 
-Zero Incident Framework improves doctor-patient relationships by increasing productivity and decreasing technological disturbances
-Award-winning artificial intelligence helps organizations become incident-free

About GAVS Technologies

GAVS Technologies is a global IT services provider committed to improving user experience and reducing resource utilization by bringing meaningful, actionable insights to speed up network fixes and by providing real data as quantifiable justification to adopt strategies that foster business improvements. GAVS’ primary focus is their new platform, Zero Incident Framework (ZIF), which enables proactive detection and remediation of incidents and increases uptime, helping organizations drive toward a Zero Incidents Enterprise. 

Zero Incident Framework

ZIF is an award-winning artificial intelligence based technology operations (AIOps) tool developed by GAVS Technologies, powered by advanced patent-pending machine learning techniques including AI-based predictive analytics, BOT-based remediation, and monitoring and virtualized desktop infrastructure that could be deployed individually or as an integrated solution. 

ZIF Improves Doctor-Patient Relationships

GAVS’ ZIF platform was implemented at BronxCare Health System, which is the largest voluntary, non-profit health and teaching hospital system serving the South and Central Bronx. They have infused more than $300 million into the Bronx economy through various capital projects including their Health and Wellness Center for outpatient care and their Life Recovery Center for chemical dependency services. BronxCare Health System is among the largest and busiest providers of outpatient services in New York City, with more than one million visits annually. 

The hospital deals with 100 different vendors, and they had approximately 50 to 80 direct cyberattacks every day. The target availability of infrastructure and systems was around 99.99%. The need for high availability, greater precision of prediction, IT infrastructure, mission-critical application support, and a cost-effective solution was imperative given their deep reach and incredible service to the community.

GAVS Technologies' ZIF platform was selected as part of the hospital’s digitalization journey for end-to-end IT managed services and operations analytics. ZIF enabled proactive detection and remediation of incidents, helping the system drive toward high availability. Implementing this technology helped the hospital to move from a reactive model to a proactive, preventive, predictive, and prescriptive model of governance with almost 80% accuracy. With the recent adoption of AIOPs, the hospital has disrupted the clinical operations in a positive way - they’ve enhanced the patient experience with the doctors by being able to spend longer time together. Previously, doctors had to spend more than half of their very short consultation time feeding in information onto the system (usually 6 out of their 10 minutes were spent entering patient data into the system). Further, the implementation of AI for malware threat detection has improved the hospital’s overall cyber-secure environment. 

The improved productivity not only served to uphold the name BronxCare Health System has built for themselves, but it also helped increase revenue realization due to more handling capability. ZIF’s contribution to the BronxCare Health System not only stands as a testament to GAVS’ innovative work in AIOps, but also to their commitment and perseverance in serving the community.

Recent ZIF and Bronxcare Accomplishments 

• Moved operations from a reactive model to a proactive model, thus preventing outages and data disasters 
• Achieved 80% accuracy with system learning continuously through Reinforcement Learning Algorithms
• Increased time spent with patients up to 50%
• Increased revenue realisation due to more handling capacity
• Enhanced resource planning
• Prevented 50 to 80 cyberattacks per day

• Technology expert and senior software developer of Dynamic Enterprise Solutions has over 100 certifications 
• Boguda’s expertise is sought after by Fortune 100 companies and prestigious institutions.
• His influential pro bono work empowers global organizations and leaves a positive impact on the world and on the future of technology.

About Dynamic Enterprise Solutions

Dynamic Enterprise Solutions partners with clients to provide business-savvy enterprise solutions from blueprinting to production support.

SatishKumar Boguda

Dynamic Enterprise Solutions’ senior software developer SatishKumar Boguda is a technology evangelist and a multi-award-winning international researcher who continues to live at the nexus of people and innovation. With such a broad spectrum of inventive experience and competencies, Mr. Boguda applies award-winning innovation abilities and has made a number of contributions to the information technology industry by supporting clients in the oil and gas, research, development, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, finance, transport, and energy divisions.

Mr. Boguda is primarily a specialized technical advisor on system upgrades, complex IT environments, intelligent applications, interfaces, solution design, and data migration methodologies for a wide range of technology and business groups. He collaborates with numerous CTOs to review the latest technological developments. With his knowledge and expertise, he helps Fortune 100 clients take full advantage of emerging innovations by incorporating new technology trends, addressing complex issues, delegating duties thoughtfully, and managing time appropriately.

He simplifies the journey of Digital Transformation and he achieves this with an imposing resume of awards and achievements:

• Gold Winner of the Information Technology Professional of the Year, 2019 - Globee Awards.
• Gold Winner of the Outstanding Developer on the Planet - One Planet Awards.
• Gold Winner of the Best White Paper, Advanced Technology Solutions - Golden Bridge Awards.
• Silver Winner of the Most Valuable IT Professional - Golden Bridge Awards.

Mr. Boguda has indeed been honored by influential leaders, prominent organizations for his competence, dedication, and outstanding contributions all across the technology sector. He serves as a member of the advisory boards for numerous international conferences, journals and highly respected organizations.

Stevie Awards - What really is the driving force that keeps you inspired or tends to make you hit the ground in the morning?

SatishKumar Boguda – It is the whole percentage of my passion, integrity, and optimistic approach, which really are the energy boosters that tends to keep me focused and at the same time empowers me to achieve more and further. And again, being in the footprints of a technology evangelist, I generally make each endeavor to think about the future and keep myself unlocked to new opportunities by moving in a positive direction to collaborate with innovative people and energizing projects. This very well explores me to different potential outcomes for implementing modern technological advancements which truly influence and the benefits it continues to offer to an individual or may be an organization in their everyday undertakings.

At the end of the day, the success mantra is all about a continued efforts and strategy to deliver something productively, and the value it continues to bring back to the technology and research community truly makes a significant difference.

Stevie Awards - As someone at the pinnacle of your profession, what suggestion do you have for companies which are attempting to implement modern technological innovations?

SatishKumar Boguda – Well, in a strategically competitive business world, organizations really do have to serve customers in real time by offering top-notch products and services anytime and anywhere in the global economy. To support today's fast-changing market demands, businesses are making every effort and are on a mission, in implementing the advanced technology innovations such as Artificial Intelligence, Block-chain, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, and so on. which will fundamentally transform how businesses function and operate more efficiently in order to survive in the digital world.

That being said, companies need to fully understand that just by introducing modern technology trends and having to implement them into their enterprise landscape will not produce the desired outcome. Business leaders have such a crucial role to play and truly need to comprehend that "Organizations need a strong business strategy to implement emerging technologies."

Strategic management is an important part of any business organization that continues to maximize the return on investment - ROI and below directions makes it possible.

• Identify what the business is trying to accomplish and figure out where do you stand.
• Pinpoint the trends and developments and forecast the real worth it tends to bring to your organization along with the strategy on how it could be implemented.
• Have transparent objectives and targets in terms of time, cost, and assets.
• Plan to bring research to each and every phase of the process.
• Accurately assess, eventually, to quantify the outcomes.

Stevie Awards - What career advice would you give for young people starting with Digital Technologies?

SatishKumar Boguda – Certainly, if you take technology in terms of direction, the world keeps on changing day by day in light of the fact that, a ground-breaking new innovation is coming onto the market, making traditional methods of solutions obsolete.

From my standpoint, no matter where you come from or what your background is, always follow your passion and do something you are excited about and make sure you generally follow a disciplined approach. Regardless of whether if you intending to take a shot on Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Robotics or Quantum Computing or Autonomous Vehicles or Block-chain, etc., always think about the future and find a way to work with somebody who is consistently smarter than you, because that really continues to push and transforms you towards the next level of new opportunities.

Keep in mind, it is only you who could choose what you really wanted to do and where to invest your time and energy. At the end of the day, it is all about one innovative idea which can unlock the power and revolutionize the world in the way that we have never imagined.

Stevie Awards - With such a profile of achievements and accolades, where do you see your professional career going in the next three to five years?

SatishKumar Boguda – Directionally, I could perhaps tell you about my drawn-out vision, just as what I plan to accomplish in the next five years is to remain at the forefront of technological innovations and continue offering advanced digital solutions to government bodies and organizations to help overcome challenges and bring benefits.

Day in and day out, I wanted to quantify long-term competitive market dynamics and stay ahead of technological advances and have a clear vision of what I am trying to achieve and remain true to it. In particular, my intriguing mind gets the energy when I try to work with high-quality individuals and initiatives, and by and large, I wanted to create new business models that could really augment the endless possibilities of the digital world to the extension of our minds.

Remember all the great achievements only happen when you start believing in yourself and maintain that sense of energy over a long period of time with the confidence to do anything.

SatishKumar Boguda of Dynamic Enterprise Solutions won the Bronze Stevie for Technical Professional of the Year in The 2020 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering the 2021 American Business Awards? 

Winners in the 2020 (fifth annual) Stevie® Awards for Great Employers, an international competition, were announced today. The awards recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.    

Among the organizations with the most Stevie-winning nominations are IBM Corporation, worldwide (18), Tata Consultancy Services (18), Cisco (10), Bank of America (nine), and Cathay United Bank, Dell Technologies, DHL Supply Chain, Globe Telecom, Pan American Energy, and QNB FINANSBANK, each with five.

For a full list of winners by category, visit www.StevieAwards.com/HR.

All Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be celebrated at a virtual awards ceremony on November 5. Tickets are now on sale.

More than 700 nominations from organizations from 23 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 90 professionals worldwide, acting as judges. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize achievement in many facets of the workplace. Categories include:

•     Employer of the Year
•    HR Achievements
•    HR Individual Awards
•    HR Team Categories
•    Solution Provider Awards
•    COVID-19 Response
•    More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

Stevie Award placements in the 31 Employer of the Year categories were determined by a unique blending of the ratings of professionals and the votes of the general public. More than 30,000 votes were cast by members of the public for their favorite employer this year.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®.

Bill Swann is a professor of Social and Personality Psychology at the University of Texas, based in Austin, Texas, United States. He wanted to study the effect of employee diversity on a work group’s overall performance.

He, along with his colleagues, signed up 400 MBA students for the study. They split the students into groups of four to six members, ensuring each group contained students with diverse backgrounds. The members of each group had to work together over the course of their first semester, and their performances at the end of the summer were used as an indicator of the group’s effectiveness.

At the end of the study, they found there were groups where members freely expressed their individuality and groups where members downplayed their identities in order to align with the rest of the team. Diversity notwithstanding, groups where members expressed their individuality emerged more successfully.

"Our research indicates that expressing personal identities in groups seems to have beneficial effects. Those who express themselves are more likely to feel known and understood because they actually are better known and understood," Swann said in a ​conversation​ with ​Inc.​ "Feeling known and understood causes people to open up, which can foster creative solutions to problems confronting the group."

As you can see, diversity in workplaces is important. But if you want to build a truly innovative workplace that not only survives but thrives in this competitive landscape, you have to work on fostering individuality.

Groupthink Out, Individuality In

You cannot talk about individuality in workplaces and boardrooms without also talking about its antithesis: groupthink. Groupthink is what affected the groups that didn’t perform so well in Swann’s experiment.

Imagine an organization where the team dynamics seem great. The thoughts of the team members align, everyone agrees with everyone else, and they are all working together to achieve the same goal. Sounds like a great workplace, right? Unfortunately, an organization like this could be the perfect example of groupthink.

An ​article​ on ​Forbes ​defined groupthink as the tendency for members in a given group to gradually drift toward the same beliefs and styles of thinking. This can be destructive. It creates forced conformity, illusions of unanimity, fewer rational decisions, and a narrower range of opinions and options.

Joe Gerstandt, an adviser on diversity and inclusion, conducted a ​webinar​ for the AICPA on the consequences of groupthink, and he spoke in support of individuality.

“No one intends to participate in groupthink,” Gerstandt said. “Rather, it occurs because people are uncomfortable with conflict and differing opinions. Welcoming differences is one key to preventing groupthink.”

How to Encourage Individuality and Build an Innovative Culture

Building an innovative work culture is not an overnight job, but it can be done. Organizations should start by building an environment where the ideas, skills, knowledge, and potential of every employee is respected. Team leaders should be trained to identify their team members’ strengths and weaknesses, and they should know how to help those employees amplify the former and provide support for the latter.

Employees should feel comfortable at the workplace, confident when voicing their ideas, and accountable for their work. Everyone should give credit where credit’s due and push for honesty, openness, and collaboration.

Organizations must also work actively on diversity inclusion, meaning individuals feel free to be themselves regardless of race, age, geography, or gender. When respect for individuality drives an innovative organization’s culture, it shows. This is the case with Qulix Systems, a software development, testing, and consulting company based in Minsk, Belarus. What started in 2000 as a quality assurance service company now also provides software development, system analysis, DevOps, blockchain and cryptocurrency, and machine learning and artificial intelligence services.

“We respect uniqueness in the way people do business, think, and act,” says Daria Zakharenkova, head of PR at Qulix Systems. When it comes to breakthroughs, individuality makes all the difference.  We hire and cultivate the best talent. We take pride in our teams. Constantly upgrading their skill sets and keeping them happy are our top priorities.”

Qulix Systems won a Bronze Stevie® Award at The 2019 ​International Business Awards​® in the Company of the Year - Computer Software - Medium-Size category.

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, announced the winners of five Grand Stevie® Award trophies in its seventh annual Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are the only awards to recognize innovation in the workplace throughout the entire 29-nation in Asia-Pacific region. All organizations in the region are eligible to submit nominations.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners in the various categories were announced on 8 July. Those awards were determined by the average scores of more than 100 executives worldwide acting as judges in May and June. Winners will be celebrated during a virtual awards ceremony on Tuesday, 22 September at 2 pm, KST. Tickets for the event are now on sale.

The 2020 Grand Stevie® Award for Organization of the Year goes to SM Prime Holdings, the Philippines, owner of SM Supermalls and Shopping Center Management, which earned 56.5 points from three Gold, 11 Silver, and 17 Bronze Stevie wins. SM Supermalls also won this honor in 2019.

Grand Stevie winners also include those with the highest-scoring nominations in the four nations that submitted the most nominations:

Australia: OnAIR by EventsAIR - the Virtual/Hybrid Event Solution, Gold Stevie winner for Award for the Innovation in Technology Development > Computer Industries          

China: Application of IoT Technology to Demand Control Ventilation in Carpark at Three Garden Road, Hong Kong, Gold Stevie-winning nomination for Award for Innovation in Technology Management, Planning & Implementation > All Other Industries submitted by Great Eagle Holdings Limited

Philippines: CultureCX Fuels Employee and Client Success, TTEC's Gold Stevie Award-winning nomination for Award for the Innovative Use of Technology in Human Resources > All Other Industries

South Korea: Kyoung Gu Kang, Team Leader, D.TRIBE, Gold Stevie winner for Most Innovative Marketing or Advertising Professional of the Year

The 2020 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards have recognized organizations in 20 nations including Australia, China including Hong Kong and Macao, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. More than 1000 nominations about innovative achievements in the 29-nation of the APAC region were considered by the judges this year.

“Though 2020 has had more challenging times than anyone expected, the Grand Stevie Awards winners prove that through determination, resiliency, and innovation that it’s still possible to succeed during rough times” said Maggie Gallagher, President of the Stevie Awards. “We commend this year’s Stevie Award winners for their achievements, and we look forward to celebrating them on 22 September.”

Details about the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards and the 22 September awards ceremony, and the list of Stevie Award winners, are available at http://Asia.Stevieawards.com.

Sponsors and partners of the 2020 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards include adobo magazine and PR Newswire Asia.

The Stevie® Awards, organizers of The International Business Awards®, announced today that the final entry deadline in the 2020 (17^th annual) edition of the awards has been extended through August 25 by popular demand. The original final entry deadline was July 28.

The International Business Awards are widely considered to be the world's premier business awards competition. In 2019 the competition attracted more than 4,000 nominations from organizations in more than 70 nations.

All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small—may submit nominations to The International Business Awards. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

“We assessed that it’s necessary to push the entry deadline to provide more time to prepare and submit nominations to organizations that are effected by the pandemic,” said Stevie Awards president Maggie Gallagher.

Juries featuring more than 150 executives will determine the Stevie Award winners. The Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced on September 9.

New this year are a variety of COVID-19 response awards categories that do not have entry fees. These aim to honor heroes of every industry including medical, education, food delivery, media, public service, business response, and more.

The International Business Awards recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace. Categories include:

• Management Awards 
• Entrepreneur of the Year Awards
• Company of the Year Awards
• Customer Service Awards 
• Human Resources Awards 
• Information Technology Awards
• Marketing Awards 
• New Product Awards 
• Public Relations Awards 
• Web Site Awards, Smartphone and Tablet App, and other media awards

The IBAs feature more than 40 categories that do not require the payment of entry fees, including all 35 of the Company/Organization of the Year categories, and that there are many new and revised features of the IBAs for 2020, including:

• Nine new categories to recognize singular business achievements in areas such as business turnaround, finance, revenue generation, and science and technology, among others.
• The simplification of submission requirements in the Company/Organization, Corporate Communications & Public Relations, Marketing, and New Product & Product Management category groups.