Marc Wileman might be known for making slime and firing rockets before crowds of excited children. But for “Mad” Marc, as his young audience members like to call him, it’s not just about creating a spectacle. The real goal is changing the way school kids feel about science.

Since founding Sublime Science nine years ago, his Leicester-based company has become one of the most popular birthday party and event companies in England, reaching more than a million youths.

The shows are part exhibition—think smoke ring blowers and lightning experiments—and part hands-on laboratory for the kids. Participants may find themselves turning everyday ingredients into a sweet confection or learning about physics through a wild “tornado race.”

According to Wileman, a safety-first mentality in the U.K. has gone a step too far, in many cases keeping younger students from having a more personal encounter with science.

“Children today aren't even allowed to do their own science experiments and wind up thinking science is just theory,” says the entrepreneur, whose firm recently earned the Gold Stevie® Award in The 2017 International Business Awards for Company of the Year in the Consumer Services segment.

Humble beginnings

If anyone can appreciate the importance of an early love for science, it’s Wileman. His passion started when he read the novel George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl in primary school. By age eight, he was performing experiments on his own.

Years later, he went on to study science at the University of Toronto and later at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., where he earned a First Class Master’s Degree in physics. Upon graduation, he found himself working for an Australian education organization, teaching kids all over New South Wales about physics from the back of a pickup truck.

Soon the recent grad, then just 22 years old, was thinking about building a similar program in his native England. However, despite his passion for science and education, he admits being short on business experience—and money.

“I founded Sublime Science on personal credit cards and a £1,750 loan from the Prince's Trust,” he says. “I had to move back to my parents' house and run the entire company, as well as storage and sleeping, out of one room.”

Those challenges aside, it became clear early on that Wileman had a winning formula. “Thankfully, the children loved the experiments and word-of-mouth began to spread,” he recalls.

In time, he obtained the capital his fledgling business needed, thanks in no small part to a pitch on the BBC show, Dragons’ Den. Through the appearance, he garnered an investment from two of the “dragons,” enabling Wileman to take the company to a new level.

A successful formula

Since then, he has put on countless birthday parties and school workshops throughout the U.K. and has grown his staff to eight employees.

“We create unforgettable experiences and sneak in the learning when the children are having too much fun to notice,” he says.

Wileman has even written a book, Don’t Eat Your Slime, that shows kids how to conduct their own experiments at home, like how to make bubbling volcanoes and create a musical instrument.

As a result of his efforts, Sublime Science has amassed a litany of plaudits, including the Queen's Award for Enterprise and a Great British Entrepreneur Award for Best Service Business. The firm even received a congratulatory letter from 10 Downing Street, home of Britain’s prime minister.

In October, the organization added the Gold Stevie Award, presented during a gala in Barcelona, Spain, to that illustrious list.

“It’s been an awesome boost for the team and a great way to spread the word about managing to reach one million kids,” Wileman says.

The Stevie® Awards has issued a call for entries for the 2018 (fifth annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the only business awards program to recognize innovation in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

The early-bird entry deadline is November 29. The final entry deadline is February 7, 2017, but late entries will be accepted through March 14 with the payment of a late fee. Complete entry details are available at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are open to all organizations in the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region: Large and small, for-profit and non-profit, public and private. The awards focus on recognizing innovation in all its forms, wherever it is achieved in the workplace. Entries are accepted in seven languages.

• Annual Report Awards & Other Publication Awards
• Customer Service Awards
• Company/Organization Awards
• Human Resources Awards
• Information Technology Awards
• Management Awards
• Marketing Awards
• New Product Awards
• Corporate Communications, IR, and PR Awards
• Website Awards and Smartphone and Tablet App Awards
  …and more

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

New awards categories introduced for 2018 include Award for Innovative Management in Government, Award for Innovative Management in Non-Profit Organization or NGOs and Award for Innovative Management in Public Enterprises.

Asia-Pacific Stevie Award winners will be announced on April 18. Winners will be celebrated and presented their awards during a gala banquet on June 1 in Hong Kong.

Scores of professionals from throughout the region will participate in the judging process to determine the Stevie winners.

Some of the Asia-Pacific region’s most innovative organizations have won Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards in the past four years including ABS-CBN Corporation, Bangkok Health Research Center, Delta Air Lines, Freelancer.com, GE Indonesia, Globe Telecom, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Huawei, Maras Group, MetLife Asia Ltd., MSLGROUP China, Ooredoo, PT Petrokimia Gresik, Samsung, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Singapore Power, Sony, Telkom Indonesia, Xiaomi, and more.

Integrating clients’ needs with a targeted solution while developing a mutually beneficial partnership can be a challenge. Meet Trowbridge & Trowbridge, LLC (T&T), a Stevie® Award-winning, women-owned and -managed small business headquartered in the Washington D.C. area. Its innovative IT solutions include cloud computing, cybersecurity and unified communications services to the federal civilian, defense and health markets. The company has empowered cloud computing, information assurance and unified communications. That’s why it won the Gold and Silver Stevie Award for Best Support Staffer and Bronze for Best Support Team in the 2017 American Business Awards.

Center-stage talent

Not just another federal integrator, T&T provides agile, leading-edge technology solutions and support for the DoD and Civilian agencies. Tyrone Bachus is the Senior Director of Communications & Quality of T&T, and he’s excited about the spotlight on them and what it means to them.

“The impact was huge to raise the visibility of our quality initiative, which won two awards, and the extraordinary efforts of our Quality Manager who won the gold and silver, and was certainly part of our bronze award.”

T&T has been a longtime winner in the Stevie Awards—they were one of the first teams to win gold for Support Team with RS Information Systems.

It’s never ‘not interesting’

In the realm of government contracting, it's never a dull moment. With the changes in economy, the president and the focus on new agendas, service quality is more important than ever to keep the company on the right course. Bachus comments on what’s important to focus on.

“Quality is baked into the culture of our company, but with rapid growth comes an increasing influx of new staff, so it's imperative that they become part of our culture of quality as quickly as possible.”

They also make sure to encourage team building with quarterly cooking competitions and happy hours.

“If you see coworkers as people and not employees, you'll treat them with more respect and have a little more fun,” Bachus continues. “We also foster a culture of community enrichment and participate in at least one volunteering event as a group each year.”

Vibrant, dynamic and women-owned

T&T is a great example of a women-owned business providing amazing value in their community. Coming from an EDWOSB and growing through strategic hiring of intellectual capital, Bachus tells of the internal thought process that plays a big role in how they decide what needs to be nurtured and what needs to go.

“An exponential growth trajectory has forced us to focus on our staff and their growth and development. Multiple industry awards for culture, growth and Inc. 5000 placements have kept us in the public eye.”

As they continue to try and increase their expectations, communication is key among their staff. This comes in the form of an employee newsletter, monthly CEO and Values posts on their employee portal and quarterly all-hands meetings.

“We've fought our way through a tough industry to earn our place around the beltway and our name on the building.”

British television viewers may recognize her as the one-time “Muse of Marketing” on Sky News or for her appearances on BBC’s version of The Apprentice. But countless business executives know her in a more personal light – as a trusted advisor who helps refine their marketing strategy and guide their expansion into new markets.

For the past three decades, the art of bridging cultural barriers has been Allyson Stewart-Allen’s passion. As the founder and CEO of International Marketing Partners, she’s helped more than 200 businesses leverage new opportunities in the United States and internationally.

As an American-born California native who has called the United Kingdom her home for nearly 30 years, Stewart-Allen brings first-hand experience to the international business challenges her clients face. “My goal is that, by helping people bridge cultural or organizational divides, they and their organizations are happier and more able to fulfill their purpose,” she says.

In addition to her work as a consultant, Stewart-Allen has also been active as a public speaker and as mentor for the Mayor of London’s International Business Programme. In addition, she co-wrote Working With Americans, a book designed to educate foreigners on America’s business culture.

This year, she’ll don another title – Judging Committee Chair of the Marketing Awards categories in The 2017 International Business Awards. It’s a role where she can draw on her expertise to not only select winning companies, but provide input that other entrants can draw on as the move forward.

“The Stevie Awards are one of the few business competitions that are truly international, providing judges with a great opportunity to compare the achievements of businesses from a global, rather than local, perspective” she says.

An emphasis on ‘localization’

“I have always been fascinated by how businesses operate, particularly in the areas of leadership, sales and marketing,” saysStewart-Allen.

After attending the University of Southern California’s  Marshall School of Business as an undergrad in the early 1980s, she earned her MBA under the tutelage of Peter Drucker, one of the most influential business thinkers of the past half century.

She went on to work for multiple blue-chip advisory firms – PwC, PA Consulting Group and Hay Management Consultants – before establishing International Marketing Partners in 1991. There, she’s surrounded herself with a group of marketing and business development specialists who bring experience in a variety of industries.

Stewart-Allen and her team have counseled dozens of businesses, including the likes of Burberry, HSBC, NBC Universal and SAB Miller. Her firm provides market analysis as well as insights into foreign business cultures that companies can leverage to attain better returns on their marketing investment.

“I am a hands-on CEO, so I define what my clients require and work with the Board and their operational teams to meet the agreed objectives, which could mean running a workshop one day, talking to a CEO about the strategy for international growth, running leadership courses or undertaking market research,” she explains.

An improved understanding of overseas markets helps ensure that clients avoid a one-size-fits-all strategy that may not work in every corner of the globe. “As a result of more local approaches and effectiveness, my clients achieve increased brand loyalty, employee loyalty and stakeholder engagement,” Stewart-Allen notes.

In the age of social media, she says, the stakes are even higher when organizations step outside their comfort zone. “It can bring a company’s mistakes to the consumer’s attention within minutes and thereby detrimentally affect the company’s brand, reputation and ability to bounce back.”

Leading the panel of judges for the marketing awards is another avenue for Stewart-Allen to help companies get it right. “My goal is to help businesses operate profitably in an increasingly global environment, at a time when the future is hard to predict,” she says.

Nonprofit organizations can face challenges when it comes to planning and executing successful communications and community engagement work. But Family League of Baltimore (FLB), an intermediary nonprofit, has uniquely positioned itself to invest in initiatives that provide access to resources and opportunities not readily available to children and families in many city neighborhoods. Their deep collaboration and capacity for building with local leaders, community-based organizations, funders, and other stakeholders have all contributed to their Gold Stevie Award in the Communications Department of The Year category in The 2017 American Business Awards.

Positive Changes that Align with Community Priorities
Each year, FLB makes collaborative efforts, and targeted investments to help open doors to education, health care, and economic opportunity for tens of thousands of children, youths, and families living in Baltimore, MD USA. Amy Bernstein, Director of External Relations at Family League of Baltimore says winning a Gold Stevie has made an immediate impact on their organizations.

“It prompted a meaningful conversation with our CEO and COO about the true strategic role and potential reach of communications as an organizational asset; validated our professionalism; and gave us an opportunity, through Facebook, to link the recognition with our dedication to sharing stories and progress about people and programs in the communities where we invest public resources.”

FLB occupies a unique niche in Baltimore's nonprofit landscape. In large part, as a hub organization that's able to braid together federal, state, city, and private dollars to ensure these funds are invested in programs and services that align with community priorities; direct resources towards the needs of the “whole” child, from prenatal and family health care up through college and career; strengthen the capacity of existing service providers across the City; and advocate for meaningful policy changes to improve lives and build equity.

Vigilante Efforts

Since FLB relies on government funds, a great effort in working closely with elected officials at the state and local levels is necessary for continued success. Bernstein keeps a close eye on their, “value proposition and ability to achieve results that matter to children, families, and their communities.” This requires constant and vigilant efforts to educate and inform leaders on an almost daily basis.

Trends in personal and institutional usage of technology -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, etc. -- also helps them deploy the right mix of tech to suit. Bernstein believes access to internet services plays a huge role as well.

“Our message and our target demographics depends more and more on online communications, it's increasingly challenging to reach people who do not use the Internet regularly.”

Constantly Learning From Each Other

Bernstein is a big fan of their three-person team aimed at reflecting diversity in terms of age (GenX, Millennial, and Baby Boomer), work experience, and core skill sets. In many workplaces, navigating inter-generational relationships is a source of tension and conflict.

“For us, it is a source of strength; we constantly learn from one another. We approach every communications campaign with clear goals in mind; we listen closely to our internal "customers" as to what is needed”

Staying as creative and integrated as possible is the name of the game. Whether in their graphic design, social media or print and video campaigns, “striving for authenticity in our work--using real images, voices, and testimonials of real people from our local communities, as much as possible is a significant predictor of success.”

Bernstein acknowledges how important experiences in collaborative efforts are when the time comes to sway partnerships to their path. Inexperienced professionals may or may not be ready.

“Our team has over 50 years of combined experience in almost every communications niche--ranging from corporate PR to journalism to executive speechwriting. There is hardly a challenge that comes our way that we have not dealt with before, in some way, which helps us find the best solutions. Together, in less than a year, we have built a versatile, proactive communications shop virtually from scratch.”

The 4th annual German Stevie Awards is now accepting entries. Companies and organizations from all industries can now enter nominations free of charge for their best projects and achievements, to compete for the coveted Stevie Awards trophies.

Early-bird entrants will benefit from a reduced winners fee until December 6, 2017.

Since the founding of the International Business Awards in 2003, the Stevie Awards have become firmly established in the global economic world. Since 2014, the German Stevie Awards have been offering companies operating in the German market a competition platform for national benchmarking.

The special feature of the Stevie Awards: “They are not just another industry award for the big players,” says Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “Certainly, many of the world’s largest and best known companies are among our winners. But most winners of the Stevie Awards are small and medium-sized companies that are still growing and are still building their brands.”

The entrants may choose from a great variety of categories, such as awards for entire companies and organizations, that honor the achievements of for profit and non-profit organizations, large and small, private and public. New at the German Stevie Awards in this year are the categories “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 34 industries as well as the title “Solo Entrepreneur of the Year”.

The entry kit and a complete overview of the categories and subcategories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Deutschland.

There are many other categories to recognize achievement in every major business function, including product development, marketing, customer service, human resources, public relations, technology, and more.  Michael Gallagher adds: “Many categories of the German Stevie Awards also honor great achievements in the field of business-related media and publications.” This includes awards for live events, annual reports and publications, app development, videos and websites.

This year, participating organizations can expect a slightly different way to submit nominations. For the first time, the German Stevie Awards will waive the general entry fees and replace them with a special winners fee. This means that entrants can submit unlimited nominations in unlimited categories free of charge. Instead of paying an entry fee for each submitted entry, entrants will only pay a winners fee per successful nomination.  Each nomination that wins a Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award will be assessed a winners fee of 400 euros. Companies submitting their nominations through the first entry deadline, December 6, 2017 will benefit from a reduced winners fee of 375 euros per winning nomination.

“We have decided to take this step to encourage more organizations to participate in the German Stevie Awards,” said Michael Gallagher. “With the new model, companies will only be charged if their nomination is recognized as a winner by the jury”

The payment of the winners fee will unlock the right to publicly claim Stevie-winner status and the winner will be listed in the official winners list. There are more benefits, including access to all judges’ comments about all of their entries and the right to receive their award on stage at the awards ceremony.

If entrants miss the December 6 entry deadline, they will still be able to submit their nominations through January 24, 2018.

Several juries of leading German business executives will determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

On April 27, 2018, the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners will be celebrated and honored with their Stevies at a festive awards ceremony in Berlin. New this year: Each award winner will receive a trophy according to his level in Gold, Silver or Bronze. (In the past, only the Gold Stevie winner automatically received a trophy.)

A complete list of all 2017 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners by category is available here. For high-resolution photos of the Stevie Award trophy or the German Stevie Awards logo, visit http://stevieawards.com/gsa/photos-and-logos. We are happy to provide you with more press photos from previous winners and awards shows on request.

Learn more about the German Stevie Awards 2018 at www.StevieAwards.com/Deutschland.

World’s Top Honors for Women Professionals to Be Presented in New York on November 17

Finalists were announced today in the 14th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards and International Business Awards. The Stevies are widely considered to be the world’s premier business awards.

This year’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced at an awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Friday, November 17. More than 500 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast live on Livestream.

More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year by organizations and individuals around the world for consideration in more than 90 categories including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women and Women-Run Workplace of the Year.

Organizations with multiple finalists in a variety of categories include, among others: ARIIX (Bountiful, UT, US), Clariti Group (Brisbane, Australia), FIS (Jacksonville, FL, US), Forward (New York, NY, US), Jeunesse Global (Lake Mary, FL, US), Oceans 2 Earth Foundation (Brisbane, Australia), Pink Elephant (Burlington, ON, Canada), Simpson Healthcare Executives, LLC (Old Lyme, CT, US), Songpa-gu (Seoul, South Korea), Tavuu Welfare Association (Karachi, Pakistan), The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) (Lawrenceville, NJ, US), Tropic Skincare (London, United Kingdom), Vaco Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA, US) and ZingBox (Mountain View, CA US).

Nominations were submitted by organizations in 25 nations including Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

Visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women for a complete list of finalists by category.

Finalists were chosen by more than 170 professionals worldwide serving on five specialized judging committees.  Jurors’ average scores will also determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the finalists, which will be revealed at the November 17 event in New York.

Picture a group of young entrepreneurs with a creative vision and combine that with a huge, empty former tank factory. That’s right: a factory hall of 5.000 square meters, with a ceiling height of up to forty feet– a gigantic hangar that used to house the production lines for war machines until it closed down a good two decades ago.

A big, empty hall, located conveniently close to the city center of Mainz, Germany, which, in turn, is just around the corner from Frankfurt. Local entrepreneurs Ralph Heinrich and Dr. Hanns Christian von Stockhausen were intrigued, while also saddened, by the city’s decision in early 2015 to end the place’s 17-year tenure as a makeshift theatre venue. The local government had used the hall for cultural events since the shutdown of the tank factory in the mid-1990’s.

The vision

That was when the idea was born to revive the venue, formerly dubbed ‘Phoenix-Halle’, and transform it into ‘Halle 45’: a one-of-a-kind event hall and meeting place at the intersection of art, culture and entertainment.

The goal was to create a venue unlike any other, innovative and modern, versatile in size and functionality. Ralph Heinrich and Dr. Hanns Christian von Stockhausen founded Halle 45 GmbH in May 2015 and turned their vision into reality.

“The worst crime is faking it”

The story of Halle 45 GmbH, the ambitious, hard-working start-up from Mainz, Germany, is a unique one, and so is its motto: “The worst crime is faking it”, coined by grunge pioneer Kurt Cobain. Since its inception in 2015, the event management company, now a team of twelve full-time employees, has successfully hosted a huge variety of events at the venue, from concerts and art exhibitions, over indoor cinema, food and craft beer festivals, to industrial fairs and corporate events.

From the very start, the company also committed itself to opening the venue’s doors to non-profits and artists free of charge. Thus, the former tank factory has also hosted events like a “welcome celebration” for refugees and charity concerts.

The road to success

Charitable projects aside, the founding of Halle 45 GmbH depended on investors and needed to see profits. In the business of acquiring corporate clients, the start-up had to come up with a solid sales strategy.

The starting conditions were phenomenal: Halle 45 is the second biggest venue of its kind in the metropolitan Rhine-Main region, comprising the cities of Mainz, Frankfurt and Wiesbaden and a combined total of nearly 6 million inhabitants – an economically thriving area. The city of Frankfurt is known for its trade fairs and its growing financial district, while Frankfurt Airport is a major international air traffic hub – one of Europe’s biggest.

Another big plus: Halle 45’s innovative, versatile concept features the option to partition the space into several, individually sized venues. Add state-of-the-art technical equipment, the site’s superior amenities and professional event management – an unbeatable recipe for success.

However, in order to garner your target audience’s attention, you need traction and media attention. That’s where the Stevie® Award really helped Halle 45 GmbH to turn a page in its young history.

Ever since winning the Bronze Stevie Award at the 2017 German Stevie Awards in Hamburg, the start-up’s social network contact rate has hit untold highs. Since winning the Stevie Award, Halle 45 GmbH has also picked up other awards, among them the Mainz Business Prize. Within a period of merely two years, Halle 45 GmbH has established itself as a major venue in the Rhine-Main region – not only for cultural, but for corporate events as well.

Enterprise apps should stop forcing people to think like machines. That’s what Skuid believes and has been working on since they were founded in 2013. They believe apps should behave more like the humans who use them, so everyone can thrive in a digital world. With Skuid’s simple-to-use but incredibly robust tools, anyone can build highly complex, bespoke enterprise apps. More than five million users in 32 countries use Skuid to engage with each other, with data and with new customers in meaningful ways—all without writing a single line of code. That’s why they won a Stevie Award in a New Product of the Year category of The 2017 American Business Awards.

More Human, Less Machine

Skuid helps customers quickly build a user experience and adapt it on their own, without expensive code or engineering resources. Instead of coding a unique solution for every customer, Skuid empowers the customer to customize. Skuid CEO Ken McElrath is a designer and an entrepreneur. Ken's background in design has a significant impact on how Skuid operates.

“Skuid is founded on the belief that software should be more human and less machine—that software should work the way people work instead of forcing people to behave like machines.”

Skuid gives customers the individual components to create the impressive structures of an app, while at the same time making the structure easy to change and to scale.

Consistent Results

Skuid recently commissioned Forrester Research to do a study on the value customers get from using Skuid. The study found that Skuid delivers an ROI of 365%, has a payback period of just one month and has a 73% faster development time than other solutions. Ken says they quickly grew into a platform that would give anyone (not just an IT professional) the power and ability to assemble bespoke apps without writing code.

“Companies are demanding better ways to develop apps and employees are demanding that their enterprise apps be as intuitive and easy to use as the personal apps on their iPhone. Skuid has been successful because we deliver solutions that work. That's why we're working with 10% of the Fortune 100.”

Major Validation

Skuid believes they’ve been successful because they consistently deliver results. These results have attracted attention from Fortune 100 companies to SMBs and non-profits. Skuid has over five million users across 30+ countries and in various verticals. Skuid’s customers are diverse in many ways, but they’re united by a dedication to greatness. When the Stevie Awards caught wind of Skuid, Ken says they also helped validate their hard work.

“A Stevie Award has helped add to Skuid's third-party recognition and validation. Having won such a prestigious award and up against more than 10,000 entries from other organizations is a huge honor. The fact that more than 190 professionals worldwide, including industry analysts, journalists and other industry experts, participated in the judging process is major industry validation.”

They don’t settle for “good enough” in the way they do business, which is why they use Skuid—to create exceptional user experiences that accelerate sales productivity, supercharge customer service and amplify efficiency.

Not Like Anything Else

When it comes to enterprise software, one size doesn’t fit all. No company is exactly like another, and each company needs different systems to support their unique business process. Those with the resources spend millions to try to customize with code, but this slows everything down and creates significant maintenance overhead. Writing code to customize a generic solution is expensive, inflexible and far from optimal. Ken believes Skuid has figured out how to service this intricate challenge.

“Because apps built with Skuid are bespoke—made to order—they align to a user’s business needs perfectly. This means that rather than forcing a user's business processes into an off-the-shelf enterprise software solution, Skuid users can tailor their business apps to unlimited degrees without writing code.”

Because each app is tailored to user needs, Skuid customers have seen massive productivity gains to drive success. Skuid is perfectly positioned to meet this need. 

Top Sales Awards and Customer Service Awards Winners to Be Recognized in Las Vegas

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued a call for entries for the 2018 (12th annual) Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

All customer service, contact center, business development and sales departments, teams and professionals worldwide are eligible to be nominated, in addition to new products and services and solution providers used by those professionals. The 2018 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2016.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE. 

The early-bird entry deadline with reduced entry fees is October 18, 2017. The final entry deadline is November 15, but late entries will be accepted through January 11, 2018 with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced in mid-January, and the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements revealed during a gala awards banquet on February 23 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 135 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 13 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 11 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 categories for the 2018 competition include several in the New Product and Service section.  Among them are Best Sales Enablement Product - New, Best Sales Enablement Product - New Version, Best Sales & Marketing Mobile Application - New and Best Sales & Marketing Mobile Application - New Version. Several of the legacy sales and customer service categories have been split into multiple categories based on industry.  These include Sales Support Team of the Year, Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year, Award for Innovation in Sales, Back-Office Customer Service Professional of the Year and more.

2018 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 2017 edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service included 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., Adobe Systems, Inc., Aflac, Dell Technologies, Delta Air Lines, Deutsche Post DHL, Guidewell Connect, IBM, Inci Akü GS Yuasa, VIZIO, Inc., and Wyndham Vacation Ownership among others.

The 2018 competition will be judged by more than 150 professionals around the world.