Finalists in the 17th Annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, an international competition recognizing excellence in disciplines that are crucial to business success, were announced today.    

A diverse group of organizations and individuals around the world are among those recognized in the customer service awards, contact center awards, business development awards, and sales awards categories. 

Organizations with five or more Finalist nominations include Anexa BPO (Mexico City, Mexico), Blackhawk Network (Pleasanton CA USA), Cinch Home Services (Boca Raton, FL USA), ClearSource BPO (Pleasant Grove, UT USA), Datasite (Minneapolis, MN USA), DP DHL (worldwide), Druva Inc. (Santa Clara, CA USA), GoHealth (Chicago, IL USA), IBM (worldwide), Justworks (New York, NY USA), Michael Kors (New York, NY USA), Optum (Eden Prairie, MN USA), PowerSchool Group LLC (Folsom, CA USA), PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Jakarta, Indonesia), Purpol Marketing Limited (Chippenham, United Kingdom), Sales Partnerships, Inc. (Broomfield, CO USA), SAP (worldwide), SoftPro (Raleigh, NC USA), Support Services Group, Inc (Waco, TX USA), Tata Consultancy Services (worldwide), Talkdesk (San Francisco, CA USA), TransPerfect (New York, NY USA), UPMC Health Plan (Pittsburgh, PA USA), and ValueSelling Associates Inc. (Carlsbad, CA, USA).

For a full list of Finalists by category, visit www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

All Finalist nominations ultimately will be named Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners. The placements will be revealed during a gala banquet on Friday, March 3 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets are now on sale.

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®.

More than 2,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 170 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in more than 60 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; 60 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers, among others.

Beginning today through February 17, the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service in the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service. Voting is open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com. Winners of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards in multiple industries will be determined in mid-February and honored at the awards gala in Las Vegas on March 3.

Nominations for a special prize, the Sales Partnerships Ethics in Sales Award, remain open through February 3. Nominations to that category are free. Winners will also be announced and recognized at the March 3 ceremony.

Stevie-winner LINK Agency is a Los Angeles-based social media marketing company specializing in data-driven, short-form advertising optimized for the attention span of the TikTok generation. At LINK, they seek to make ads entertaining and to empower digital content creators to become entrepreneurs with their own content.

Their patent-pending methodology links brands with TikTok trends and creative strategy to produce extremely high-performing content. They support companies with content production, media campaigns, auditing/consulting/strategy, and viral campaigns, using a combination of targeted and paid media.

LINK Agency campaigns have, to date, produced over 3 billion organic impressions and over 2 million in user-generated content. Their campaigns result in an average of $2.30 organic CPM and have a 24-hour average watch time for monthly active users.

Jewelry company Pura Vida approached LINK when they wanted to develop more disruptive campaigns on TikTok to take their presence to the next level.

The Pura Vida TikTok Campaign
Pura Vida is a jewelry company committed to providing sustainable employment for communities of artisans who handcraft bracelets to spread the “pura vida” lifestyle and ignite positive change for people and the planet.

Pura Vida got in touch with LINK Agency to gain more coverage about LINK's partnership with the influencer Charli D’Amelio and seek creative ideas for the execution of the TikTok campaign.

LINK Agency conducted a deep dive of Pura Vida’s brand identity and designed a creative
strategy for their 3-week optimal TikTok campaign to support their new product launch. They also created multiple pieces of content for the Pura Vida page, which were concentrated over a 15-day timeline for maximum impact. LINK takes a unique approach to campaigns—they are detail- and data-driven, and have a knack for picking sounds that have the potential to go viral and also reflect clients' brands perfectly.

LINK provided creative input and executional support for the production of the song and its implementation, as well as guidance about music licensing on the growing video platform – a disruptive method for establishing brand awareness at scale.

The chosen campaign song, Pura Vida Feel Like By Andrey Azizov, went viral on TikTok with over 11,000 user-generated videos and over 100 million organic views in the #ShowUsYourHappy challenge period. The use of micro creators was leveraged thereafter to amplify the challenge.

Since Winning Their Stevie Award
With their Gold Stevie Award-winning campaign for Pura Vida, LINK achieved a 2.2x growth of the brand channel from 117,600 to 256,400 followers on TikTok during the 3-week promotion time. The campaign resulted in over 100 million total views from the TikTok videos using the Pura Vida sound and a total of 10.8 million likes as of May 2021.

In the last 18 months, LINK has collaborated with clients like Gameloft, Pura Vida, Supercell, Space Ape, Steve Madden, Sky Castle, Exodus, Guru Energy, Lingokids, among others. They have been hiring top-class talent to support creative needs, most recently hiring Frederico Lopes as COO and Joaquim Salgueiro as Paid Media Director. With both joining as Partners in the Company, LINK aims to raise the bar of operational excellence and continue reaching more brands and help them take advantage of new and ever-changing disruptive social media marketing opportunities.

They are also developing a new platform and implementing processes that allow clients to review, approve, and provide content feedback faster and more effectively. This will enable them to provide real-time data work and results updates to clients.

LINK Agency won a Gold Stevie Award for Influencer Marketing Campaign of the Year in The 2022 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 American Business Awards?

Women-owned Saris and Things was launched in 2011 as an online-only business where customers could rent or buy traditional Indian clothing and accessories, including shoes, jewelry, and wedding clothing. Within two years, their business quickly expanded to Amazon and other online marketplaces, where they became a top seller of many brands of clothing and fine jewelry.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Saris and Things pivoted to sell face masks, hand sanitizers, gloves, and other PPE items that were suddenly in high demand. In 2021, they again expanded their inventory to sell COVID test kits and lab supplies under their DBA SNT Biotech. By staying alert to customer needs and adapting quickly, Saris and Things was able to thrive during a time of rapid, global change and uncertainty.

Determining and Prioritizing Customer Needs
Before the pandemic began in 2020, Sari and Things was an exclusive online business selling or renting traditional Indian clothing and accessories to customers at a fraction of retail prices. They feature large collections for men and women of pre-pleated saris, lehengas, anarkalis, and sherwanis for Indian weddings and Bollywood-themed parties. They also offer group discount codes and assistance to brides, event organizers, and wedding planners.

As soon as the need for face masks became clear, they immediately began selling cloth face masks in their online storefronts. In fact, they were one of the first Amazon sellers to sell cloth face masks in March 2020, selling thousands of masks since. They decided to offer more in-demand COVID-19 items later, including gloves, hand sanitizer, pulse oximeters, multiple types of face masks, and varying PPE items.

Remaining vigilant to broader market needs in this economic environment, Saris and Things DBA SNT Biotech then began reaching out to laboratories to offer PPE products and  lab consumables like swab kits, tubes, and biohazard bags. They realized the market potential in this evolving market and mobilized operations to expand this arm of their company even further.

Upon request from many of their lab customers, SNT Biotech started assembling their own FDA-registered PCR collection kits and distributing them throughout the USA. By 2021, they had become one of the largest wholesale suppliers of PCR and rapid-antigen tests, delivering to over 500 laboratories and hospitals.

During a time when many businesses were struggling to survive, Sari and Things found a way to pivot and become part of the solution to combat the COVID crisis. Although they started out in the fashion industry for a niche group of consumers, they took the leap to drastically alter and expand their inventory and client network. This foresight and adaptability enabled them to save their business from shutting its doors. At the same time, they were able to help countless individuals, hospitals, and laboratories gain access to essential PPE,  test kits, and medical supplies.

Since Winning Their Stevie
Sari and Things, DBA SNT Biotech has seen its revenue grow by over 2000% since winning their Silver Stevie Award. Today, they are one of the leading national suppliers of Hospital Supplies, Lab Consumables, PCR collection kits, and OTC and POC Rapid Antigen test kits to labs and hospitals around the country.

Saris and Things, Inc. won a Silver Stevie Award for Fastest Growing Company of the Year Among Companies with Up to 100 Employees in The 2022 American Business Awards.

Interested in entering The 2023 American Business Awards?

Gute Nachricht für alle, die ihre Nominierungen für die 9. German Stevie® Awards noch nicht eingereicht haben: Bewerbungsunterlagen können jetzt noch bis zum letzten, endgültigen Einsendeschluss am 10. Februar eingesendet werden.

Eigentlich sollte bereits am 18. Januar Schluss sein: der letzte Tag zur Einreichung von Nominierungen bei dem branchenübergreifenden deutsch-europäischen Wirtschaftspreis. Doch aufgrund zahlreicher Anfragen, ob es möglich sei, die Teilnahmefrist noch etwas zu verlängern, haben sich die Organisatoren der German Stevie® Awards dazu entschlossen, interessierten Unternehmen noch etwas mehr Zeit einzuräumen, und den 10. Februar 2023 als letzten Tag festgelegt, an dem Bewerbungen noch akzeptiert werden.

„Wir freuen uns sehr über die rege Aufmerksamkeit, die den German Stevie® Awards durch die teilnehmenden Organisationen zuteil wird. Viele hochkarätige Unternehmen haben bereits spannende Nominierungen eingereicht“ erklärt Maggie Miller, Präsidentin der Stevie® Awards. Umso mehr freue sie mich, dass interessierte Unternehmen nun noch drei weitere Wochen die Möglichkeit haben, um sich mit ihren besten Projekten und Leistungen zu bewerben.

Die Kategorien

In der neunten Edition des Wettbewerbs stehen den Teilnehmenden wieder eine Vielzahl an Kategorien zur Auswahl. Neu in diesem Jahr sind die Thought Leadership Awards. „Hier werden Unternehmen gewürdigt, die aktiv Maßnahmen ergriffen haben, damit sich ihre Mitarbeitenden als Vordenkerinnen und Vordenker (Thought Leaders) entwickeln und ihre Vordenkerrolle (Thought Leadership) einem Publikum innerhalb und außerhalb der Organisation vorstellen können,“ beschreibt Maggie Miller die neuen Awardkategorien. Zudem werden auch konkret einzelne Personen in ihrer Rolle als Vordenker ausgezeichnet.

Zu den klassischen Hauptkategorien der German Stevie® Awards zählen unter anderem: Awards für Unternehmen/Institutionen, Awards für Unternehmer, Awards für App-Entwicklung, Human Resources-Awards, Awards für Informationstechnologie, Klimaschutz-Awards, Kundenservice-Awards, Marketing-Awards, PR-Awards  Social Media-Awards und die Awards für Produktentwicklung.

Publikumspreis für die beliebtesten Unternehmen

Auch in diesem Jahr wartet eine besondere zusätzliche Auszeichnung auf die Teilnehmenden: die People's Choice Stevie Awards für die beliebtesten Unternehmen. Alle Organisationen, die mit einem Gold-, Silber- oder Bronze-Stevie Award bei den German Stevie® Awards 2023 ausgezeichnet werden, haben die Möglichkeit zusätzlich mit dem People's Choice Stevie® Award für die beliebtesten Unternehmen prämiert zu werden. Dazu findet vom 8. bis 29. März 2023 eine öffentliche Online-Abstimmung statt, bei der jeder für seinen Favoriten abstimmen kann. Das Unternehmen mit den meisten Stimmen in jeder Kategorie erhält als Auszeichnung eine Kristalltrophäe. Damit haben alle Teilnehmenden die Möglichkeit auf gleichzeitig zwei Auszeichnungen mit nur einer eingereichten Nominierung.

Haben auch Sie in den letzten zweieinhalb Jahren Großartiges geleistet? Dann nutzen Sie jetzt noch die Gelegenheit, sich um die Auszeichnung mit einem German Stevie® Award 2023 zu bewerben. Alle Informationen, was Sie tun müssen, um eine erfolgreiche Nominierung einzureichen, finden Sie in den Teilnahmeunterlagen und auf www.StevieAwards.com/GSA.

Stevie-award winner NRPR Group is a full-service public relations (PR) and strategic positioning agency that serves disruptive enterprises, startups, and thought leaders within the consumer tech, HealthTech, sports, entertainment, diagnostics, and web3 innovation spaces.

Its team is made up of master storytellers, strategists, editors, publicists, and marketing minds working together to capture the true essence and soul of the brands they represent.

Headquartered in the heart of Beverly Hills, California with roots in Silicon Valley and offices across the United States, NRPR prides itself on having a powerful global network of visionaries and talent while maintaining an unwavering commitment to uplevel the way that PR is done at home and abroad.

Continuously expanding their offerings portfolio to match their clients’ evolving needs, NRPR possesses the power to help brands go from concept to reality, while delivering meaningful, measurable press results and public buy-in along the way.

NRPR Biz Pro™
NRPR won a Gold Stevie Award for the launch of NRPR Business Productions (Biz Pro™), its
business development arm that offers new businesses full concept-to-opening launch support, ranging from legal entity creation to brand identity and design.

With this new branch of business, NRPR became the only PR agency to offer cutting-edge, multimedia content creation services through NRPR Productions and end-to-end, pre-launch business development strategy and support — in addition to its core multi-channel public relations services.

The idea for NRPR Biz Pro sprang from the team’s understanding that many ambitious entrepreneurs have incredible concepts for a new product or service, but often don't know how to move forward logistically to turn that concept into a registered, operating business. Throughout the pandemic — when faced with massive industries shifts, global economic shutdowns, and a rise in demand for COVID-related products and services — several of these budding business owners sought out NRPR’s PR and marketing expertise before their actual company had been solidified.

NRPR's CEO and founder, Nicole Rodrigues, recognized the opportunity to partner even more closely with the visionaries her team serves by helping guide them through the early nuances of those pre-launch logistics in a way that could seamlessly set them up for strong storytelling and PR campaigns later. By doing so, she meaningfully disrupted the way in which truly end-to-end and thoughtful PR is done in the modern era, as NRPR Biz Pro is the first end-to-end, strategic business development offering of its kind within the PR landscape.

Going Above & Beyond
By partnering with a business owner in the earliest days of idea development and helping them navigate the complexities of incorporating the company, setting up scalable financial systems and legal entities, and helping outline a strong brand identity (to name a few of the services included within NRPR Biz Pro’s offerings), NRPR takes those clients who have trusted the agency with their story through the full spectrum of business strategy and branding support.

This is just one of the many services that NRPR offers its clients to go far beyond what traditional PR firms are willing to handle, including logo and brand identity development, website and digital media development, newsletter creation and strategic messaging framework, pitch deck creation, investor relationship building, and more.

Once those essential gears are operating at full capacity, startups can be confident that PR and marketing teams can then capture the essence of their story and brand to capture the audience they intend to reach.

"We’ve fought hard to overcome every single challenge presented to us, our clients, and our community throughout this pandemic,” said Rodrigues. “While our team put in the work, energy, and grit to remain a resilient, award-winning agency that current and future clients can rely on, we are also aware of what a blessing it is to continue to thrive against all odds recently. I am so proud of the team we have been able to expand into, the clients we have brought onboard, the new ventures we have helped establish, and the industry recognition we have been awarded for those efforts." 

NRPR Group won a Gold Stevie Award for PR Innovation of the Year in The 2022 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 American Business Awards? 

Stevie-winner ThreatModeler™ is a collaborative platform where security experts or non-security professionals alike can visualize design flaws within a few hours or minutes instead of weeks. ThreatModeler software was created to address the shortcomings of data flow diagrams, bring threat modeling capabilities in-house, and make it scalable. The vision for ThreatModeler software is to be able to model ALL the threats, automatically, with no security expertise required.

ThreatModeler provides 100+ Fortune 1000 companies to secure highly sensitive, regulated, complex, specialized, and global environments with a holistic view of the entire attack surface to minimize overall risk.

Traditionally, threat modeling was a resource and time heavy process – manual and non-collaborative. ThreatModeler is a collaborative platform where security experts or non-security professionals alike can visualize design flaws within a few hours or minutes instead of weeks.

For example, imagine a threat model that is more representative of today’s complex architectures. One that depicts how a hacker moves through a system, identifying where they’ll attack, and more importantly, what controls are required to mitigate it. Now imagine if your developers could use this threat modeling tool in-house, with little to no security expertise, little to no learning curve and without the needleless expense of an outside security consultant.

How is that possible? By using the same language and diagrams to model threats that developers already use. By making threat modeling just another step in the software development lifecycle. Data flow diagrams don’t do a good job of modeling threats in modern system architectures. And hiring outside security consultants to create custom threat models doesn’t scale. That's where ThreatModeler software comes in. Their unique methodology automatically and seamlessly integrates security within existing agile and DevOps workflows.

ThreatModeler is also innovating in threat modeling for cloud, with automation capabilities delivering instant, threat model-building functionality to save organizations vast amounts of time and enable collaboration—people can work on DevOps with security built in.

In line with these security principles, ThreatModeler released the CloudModeler in 2022, its flagship product in securing cloud infrastructure from design to deployment. Their CloudModeler software earned a Silver Stevie Award for New Product & Service - Cloud Platform in The 2022 American Business Awards.

CloudModeler Release
Optimizing ThreatModeler’s automated capabilities, CloudModeler enables organizations to implement true DevSecOps, providing actionable insights through continuous monitoring, empowering teams to discover unknown flaws in real-time. Designed with cloud migration in mind, CloudModeler enables DevOps teams to now detect security flaws before they become code vulnerabilities, enabling instant remediation, mitigating risk, and ensuring compliance post-deployment.

Through its integration with CI/CD and ALM toolchain, ThreatModeler empowers security architects, developers, and operations to keep track of mitigation progress until the architecture threat modeled is production ready. ThreatModeler also enables DevOps to scale with its patented Threat Model Chaining feature—entire or part of threat models can be nested as their own components into other threat models. Any changes to the threat model are reflected in the models in which they are nested.

ThreatModeler empowers enterprise IT organizations to map their unique secure requirements and policies directly into their enterprise cyber ecosystem – providing real-time situational awareness about their current threat portfolio and risk conditions.

Since winning their Silver Stevie Award, ThreatModeler has been working hard to bring a new version of the product to market. They have also invested heavily in their people and are making great strides in educating and working with customers.

ThreatModeler Software Inc. won a Silver Stevie Award for New Product & Service - Cloud Platform in The 2022 American Business Awards.

Interested in entering The 2023 American Business Awards?

Ein Unternehmen als wirtschaftlich selbstständige Organisation sieht sich täglich mit vielen neuen Herausforderungen konfrontiert. Ob demographische Veränderungen, fortlaufende Digitalisierung, politische und soziale Veränderung, harte Einschränkungen durch die Pandemie oder Herausforderungen durch die Energiekriese. Probleme und Veränderungen frühzeitig zu erkennen, darauf zu reagieren und eventuell durch eine Vorreiterstellung nebenbei eine höhere Zukunftsfähigkeit zu erzielen, wird oft zum Drahtseilakt. Dennoch gelingt es vielen Unternehmen, neben den täglichen Herausforderungen über sich hinaus zu wachsen und besondere Leistungen zu erzielen. Diese werden bei den German Stevie Awards besonders gewürdigt.

Für das Jahr 2023 bieten die German Stevie Awards zwei neue Unterkategorien in dem Bereich  Besondere Unternehmensleistungen. Wenn Sie und ihr Unternehmen Wert auf Diversität, Inklusion und Soziale Verantwortung legen und in diesen Bereichen aktive Änderungen vorgenommen haben, dann sind Sie bei den neuen Kategorien genau richtig. 

Ein Überblick der Kategorien

Für die folgenden Unternehmensleitungen können Sie Nominierungen einreichen: 

• Besonderes Leistung in Diversität & Inklusion (neu)
  Eine oder mehrere Initiativen Ihrer Organisation haben die Diversität und Inklusion im Umgang mit Kunden, Mitarbeitern, Partnern, Lieferanten und/oder anderen Stakeholdern im Vergleich zu einem früheren Zeitraum gefördert.
• Erfüllung der Kundenzufriedenheit
  Eine oder mehrere Initiativen Ihrer Organisation haben die Kundenzufriedenheit im Vergleich zu einem früheren Zeitraum nachweislich erhöht.
• Besondere Leistungen im Finanzbereich
  Finanzbezogene Leistungen Ihrer Organisation
• Besondere Erfolge bei der internationalen Expansion
  Initiativen, die Ihre Organisation ergriffen hat, um ihr Geschäft oder ihre Aktivitäten in weiteren Ländern auszubauen.
• Besondere Leistungen im Bereich Personalwesen
  Ihre Organisation hat die Beziehung der Organisation zu ihren Mitarbeiter:innen nachweislich verbessert.
• Besondere Leistungen im Bereich Produktinnovation
  Produktbezogene Leistungen, die sich auf Innovationen im Produktdesign oder Redesign, dem Herstellungsprozess oder der Markenbildung usw. beziehen.
• Besondere Leistungen im Bereich der sozialen Verantwortung (neu)
  Eine oder mehrere Initiativen, die Ihre Organisation im Bereich der sozialen Verantwortung ergriffen hat, die innovatives Denken und Ansätze für soziales Engagement veranschaulichen.
• Besondere Erfolge bei der Umsatz- oder Ertragsgenerierung
  Initiativen Ihrer Organisation im Vergleich zu einem früheren Zeitraum nachweislich den Umsatz oder andere Einnahmen erhöht haben.
• Besondere Leistungen im Wachstum
  Eine oder mehrere wachstumsbezogene Leistungen Ihrer Organisation.
• Besondere Leistungen bei dem wirtschaftlichen Aufschwung
  In dieser Kategorie geht es um eine "geschäftliche Wende", die die finanzielle oder betriebliche Leistung der Organisation im Vergleich zu einem früheren Zeitraum nachweislich verbessert hat.
• Besondere Erfolge in Wissenschaft oder Technologie
  Initiativen Ihrer Organisation, die einen oder mehrere Fortschritte im wissenschaftlichen oder technologischen Verständnis oder in der Praxis initiiert oder gefördert haben.

Diese Unternehmen glänzten im letzten Jahr mit besonderen Leistungen

Allianz SE & ICUnet.AG haben sich zusammengetan, um Personalabteilungen und  Expatriaten mit GoGlobal eine Onlineplattform- und App-Lösung zu bieten: Alle internen und externen Stakeholder haben auf diese Plattform Zugriff, die über API-Schnittstellen mit verschiedenen anderen Plattformen verbunden ist und so automatisch und direkt Informationen, Dokumente und Daten austauschen kann.

Durch einfache, effiziente und transparente, qualitätsorientierte Vorgänge bei der Nutzung von GoGlobal lassen sich die sonst mit einer Expatriierung verbundenen Kosten und Umstände deutlich reduzieren. Alle Prozessschritte können einfach initiiert, nachverfolgt und flexibel gemeldet werden. Alle Daten und Informationen werden gesichert innerhalb des Ökosystems übertragen. Durch GoGlobal hat sich die Zuordnung der Rollen und Zuständigkeiten während des gesamten Auftragsverlaufs und die Zufriedenheit der Mitarbeiter enorm verbessert.

Für diese großartige Leistung wurden Allianz SE & ICUnet.AG mit einem Gold Stevie für besondere Leistungen im Bereich Personalwesen ausgezeichnet.  

Ebenfalls mit einem Gold Stevie wurde American Express Payments Europe für ihr Engangement im Bereich Erfüllung der Kundenzufriedenheit ausgezeichnet. Der global integrierter Zahlungsdienstleister hat ein spezielles Angebot weiterentwickelt, um insbesondere kleinere Geschäfte und Restaurants zu unterstützen: Shop Small.  

Gerade in der Corona Pandemie seit 2020 haben der örtliche Einzelhandel und die Gastronomie schwer gelitten. Bei den Lockdowns mussten die Läden geschlossen bleiben. Kleine Unternehmer hatten ihre Ware bereits eingekauft – aber keine Kundschaft. Während große Online-Handler boomten, kämpften die Geschäfte in der Nachbarschaft ums Überleben.

Mit der Shop Small Kampagne 2021 hat American Express Kunden und Geschäfte/Restaurants zusammengebracht. Karteninhaber:innen wurden motiviert, vermehrt in den kleinen Läden in der Nachbarschaft einzukaufen und auszugehen. Anreiz war eine Rückvergütung von 5 Euro. Diese hat American Express komplett getragen. 

Sie und Ihr Unternehmen haben in den vergangenen Jahren Großes geleistet? Nutzen Sie Ihre Chance und bewerben Sie sich in den Kategorien für besondere Unternehmensleistungen der German Stevie® Awards 2023

Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications (RH Strategic) is a leading public relations (PR) agency working to introduce the world to the next generation of innovators in technology, cybersecurity, government, and healthcare.

Based in Washington, DC, and Seattle, Washington, USA, the firm combines deep market expertise with creative storytelling and communications strategy to deliver meaningful, measurable PR results for clients.

John Raffetto and David Herman founded RH Strategic in 2008 with the belief that tying great work to business objectives drives results and transforms companies into industry leaders. Their team has extensive, professional backgrounds in technology, government, and healthcare. Over time, RH Strategic has grown into a national firm of over 40 dedicated PR professionals with east and west coast offices.

RH Strategic won two Gold Stevie Awards in The American Business Awards® 2022 competition for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in both the Healthcare and Public Affairs categories. Both Gold-winning campaigns were developed on behalf of two companies who are disrupting industries within their services: PlushCare and CYBER.ORG.

PlushCare
San Francisco-based company PlushCare is a virtual primary and mental healthcare company that grew exponentially during the COVID pandemic. Rather than focusing on technology, PlushCare takes a people-first approach. The company only hires physicians from the top 50 medical institutions in the country and empowers patients to choose their own PlushCare doctor, who then becomes their “go-to” doctor for ongoing care. This allows for more trusted, personalized patient and provider relationships, leading to better care.

PlushCare tasked agency partner RH Strategic to help the company raise its visibility among consumers and potential investors to continue its rapid growth trajectory. In pursuit of this, the team set the following activities into motion:

• Identified spokespeople
• Developed messaging
• Developed a robust media list, reaching key audiences
• Targeted high-profile consumer publications to educate readers
• Leveraged key spokespeople to develop thought leadership platforms
• Conducted broad research on the media landscape
• Hosted discovery calls with subject matter experts
• Conducted a competitive analysis

RH Strategic reached its objectives and secured nearly 2 billion potential monthly readers with 31 key placements in publications such as HuffPost, Shape, Livestrong, and more, with 110 syndications reaching nearly 1.4 billion additional readers. They also secured 15 articles reaching a total of 606 million potential monthly readers in top US business publications such as Forbes, Business Insider, TheWall Street Journal and others.

Through the work of this campaign, PlushCare was able to earn the attention of Accolade, which acquired PlushCare for $450 million dollars in June 2021.

CYBER.ORG
A nonprofit funded by the US Department of Homeland Security, CYBER.ORG’s mission is to provide a free cybersecurity curriculum to K-12 educators nationwide by inspiring students to pursue careers in cybersecurity.

CYBER.ORG spearheaded the development of the first ever K-12 Cybersecurity Learning Standards to introduce uniform standard cybersecurity curriculum across all 50 states and provide educators with a roadmap for teaching cybersecurity to all students.

In partnership with RH Strategic, CYBER.ORG was able to elevate its thought leadership on the national stage and create visibility for its National K-12 Cybersecurity Learning Standards over a 12-month period via the following strategies:

• Researching the industry landscape
  
• Developing press advisories, messaging, pitches, and bylines
• Highlighting support of the standards with over 70 social media posts
• Drafting testimony for Congressional hearings and promoted through blog content
• Developing a robust influencer engagement program
• Examining legislation

Through a variety of tactics, including media engagement, social media, events, and influencer engagement, RH Strategic reached its objectives and generated visibility of CYBER.ORG’s National K-12 Cybersecurity Learning Standards among policymakers, government agencies, federal and state government, and cybersecurity and education experts.

Current Focus
Since winning the Gold Stevie for “Healthcare Campaign of the Year,” RH Strategic continues to position its healthcare clients—payers, providers, pharma/biotech, and health IT companies—
as leaders pushing the healthcare industry forward. Most recently, the RH Strategic team has focused storytelling on how the pandemic has permanently changed the patient experience and where innovation is still needed to improve health outcomes and lower costs.

RH Strategic and PlushCare continue to work together to inform patients about the benefits of
virtual primary care and mental health care. Through proactive media outreach and creative content development, the team has secured opportunities for PlushCare executives, primary care doctors and therapists to be featured in The New York Times, Business Insider, STAT, NPR, U.S. News & World Report, and several community-based media outlets. 

Since winning “Public Affairs Campaign of the Year,” RH Strategic continues to position its public affairs clients—technology, cybersecurity and healthcare companies—as leaders advocating for meaningful change inside the DC Beltway and beyond.

Recently, RH Strategic has focused its public affairs efforts on helping guide policies that improve nationwide response to cybersecurity incidents and encourage policymakers to prioritize legislation that further develops the technology workforce.

The RH Strategic team and CYBER.ORG continue to work together to help improve K-12 cybersecurity literacy nationwide. Through meaningful stakeholder engagement, messaging and strategic storytelling, the team helped CYBER.ORG launch the first-ever National Cybersecurity Education Month in June 2022, which was introduced in Congress.

RH Strategic won Gold Stevie Awards for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in both Healthcare and Public Affairs categories in The 2022 American Business Awards.

Interested in entering The 2023 American Business Awards?

Stevie-winner CIS Bayad Center, Inc. (Bayad) is the largest multichannel payment platform in the Philippines. Formerly known as Bayad Center, Bayad takes pride in having the largest billing network, serving more than 500 billers, including basic utilities, government contributions, loan payments, tuition fees, online shopping, insurance, and many others. To date, 80% of banks and financial institutions in the country are likewise powered by Bayad for their bill payment acceptance.

With more than 20 years in the industry, Bayad continues to be a trailblazer as it evolves from an over-the-counter payment center into a full-service fintech company, offering a whole suite of financial products & services available to both consumers and businesses.

Bayad won the Bronze Stevie Award in the Innovation in Rebranding category, where it articulated its brand transformation in an essay entry titled "Meralco's Bayad Center to Bayad: How a traditional bills payment brand authority in the Philippines adapted to the digital age."

Transforming the Digital Financial Experience

With technology continuing to develop in leaps and bounds, and with COVID-19 pandemic still in the equation, businesses big and small were pushed to undergo digital transformation to automate their services for their customers.

Through the use of real-time electronic payments and user-friendly mobile applications, transactions like bills payment, money remittances, and online shopping can now be done in the comfort of one’s home – something that Bayad makes possible. With the main goal of connecting, empowering, and providing customers with seamless relevant, and secured financial services, Bayad has aligned its initiatives with the goal of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in achieving 50% increase in digital financial transactions in 2023.

In line with this, the company has rebranded itself as a "Bigger, Better, and Younger Bayad" to introduce more payment channels and services, and to capture a significant chunk of the younger and internet-savvy market.

Anchored on its “Pay Anywhere” stance, Bayad has clinched and maintained partnerships with various billers, utility companies, government institutions, and remittance companies, enabling a network of establishments, agents, online and mobile applications, financial institutions, cooperatives, and fintech companies.

To date, 80% of the banks and financial institutions in the country are likewise powered by Bayad for their bills payment acceptance. More importantly, their extensive connections have resulted in successful partnerships with multinational financial services corporations such as VISA and Mastercard, empowering more customers to pay online.

Bayad has also opened opportunities to entrepreneurs to generate additional income for their existing businesses through its franchise model, enabling the company to receive various recognitions for its service excellence.

Scaling Innovation for the Future

According to Bayad, constant innovation is the linchpin in their development as a fintech institution. They continue to launch new and supportive services and solutions for customers.   

• Bayad has launched Bayad Asenso, a retail trade app that aims to provide opportunities for MSMEs to generate additional income for their existing businesses. This solution can be embedded within the business feature of the Bayad App, where business owners can register and manage their accounts, enabling them to become Bayad Agents, offering Bayad’s financial services in their respective communities.
• Apart from Bayad Asenso, Bayad also introduced the Bayad Checkout, a payment check-out solution that is integrated in an enterprise’s website or mobile app, allowing its customers to choose their preferred payment method.
• Lastly, Bayad has also successfully launched Bayad Express, a one stop shop payment solution that is also embedded in a merchant’s website or mobile app, which enables customers to access other billers of Bayad, apart from the merchant’s primary payment offerings.

As Bayad continues to create positive strides by maintaining dominance in payments, it advances its cyber security measures, enabling the company to obtain its Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Certification (PCIDSS), an information security standard for all business entities that handle card information.

With its ongoing efforts in security compliance, Bayad also utilizes fraud detection tools making them confident in expanding its user base as it continues to develop value-added services and additional revenue streams to community establishments and online businesses.

Bayad won a Bronze Stevie Award for Innovation in Brand Renovation / Rebranding in the 2022 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.

Interested in entering the 2023 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards?

Wir laden Geschäftsleute, Vordenker, Unternehmer, Innovatoren und andere Personen aus aller Welt ein, sich als Juroren für die folgenden Stevie® Awards-Programme 2023 zu bewerben: German Stevie® Awards, Middle East & North Africa Stevie® Awards, Asia-Pacific Stevie® Awards.

Die Auswahl oder Nominierung als Jurymitglied ist eine ehren- und verantwortungsvolle Aufgabe. Sie spiegelt nicht nur das Fachwissen einer Person in einem bestimmten Beruf wider, sondern zeigt auch, dass diese Person über hohe ethische Standards verfügt und in ihrer Geschäftswelt anerkannt ist und Vertrauen genießt. Qualifizierte Bewerber werden in Juryausschüsse für Marketing, Unternehmertum, neue Produkte, Technologie, Vordenkerrolle und vieles mehr berufen.


Jedes Jahr nehmen mehr als 1.000 Fachleute an der Bewertung der Stevie Awards teil. Die Durchschnittsnoten der Juroren bestimmen die Gewinner in jeder Stevie Awards-Kategorie. Da dies eine entscheidende Komponente der Stevie Awards-Wettbewerbe ist, achten wir sehr darauf, die Integrität des Juryprozesses zu wahren. Das Jurorenteam stellt sicher, dass die Jurymitglieder Experten und Fachleute in ihrer Branche sind, und führt regelmäßige Kontrollen und Überprüfungen des gesamten Prozesses durch. Das Juryteam steht neuen Jurymitgliedern als Ratgeber zur Verfügung und veranstaltet Sitzungen, um die korrekten Jury-Protokolle zu erläutern.

Vorteile für Stevie Awards-Juroren

Als Jurymitglied erfahren Sie, wie andere Organisationen oder Einzelpersonen Erfolge erzielen und Herausforderungen bewältigen. Im Folgenden finden Sie die exklusiven Vorteile einer Jurymitgliedschaft bei den Stevie Awards:

• Anerkennung - Während des Beurteilungsprozesses werden die Jurymitglieder auf der Stevie Awards-Website und im Stevie Awards-Blog gewürdigt und erhalten eine Urkunde in Papierform und im PDF-Format, die gerahmt werden kann.
  
• Profil - Sich als Jurymitglied zu qualifizieren ist eine Ehre und ein Privileg. Die Erwähnung dieses Amtes kann Ihrem beruflichen Profil hinzugefügt werden.
  
• Self-Development & Awareness - Die Juroren lernen bei der Bewertung der Beiträge Strategien, Taktiken und bewährte Verfahren anderer Branchenvertreter kennen und haben so die einmalige Gelegenheit, neue Markttrends sofort zu erkennen.
• Verleihungszeremonie - Alle Jurymitglieder sind herzlich eingeladen, an der Preisverleihung teilzunehmen, die am Ende eines jeden Wettbewerbs stattfindet. Genießen Sie einen spektakulären Abend, an dem Sie mit den Preisträgern und anderen Jurymitgliedern Kontakte knüpfen können.
• Einladungen zum Jurieren zukünftiger Wettbewerbe

Bevor Sie sich als Juror bewerben

Für die folgenden Stevie Awards-Wettbewerbe sind noch Jurorenstellen offen. Wenn Sie daran interessiert sind, als Juror zu fungieren, folgen sie einem der unten stehenden Links, um weitere Informationen zu den jeweiligen Wettbewerben zu erhalten:

• The Middle-East & North Africa Stevie Awards
• The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards
• The German Stevie Awards

Angehende Juroren sollten darauf achten, dass ihr LinkedIn-Profil auf dem neuesten Stand ist, Ihre aktuelle Erfahrung widerspiegelt und einen Wettbewerbsvorteil darstellt.

Beurteilungskriterien

Die einzelnen Kriterien unterscheiden sich je nach Kategorie, aber der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Gesamtqualität des Beitrags: Sowohl einer Bewertung der Behaupteten im Bezug auf Innovation, Integrität, Effektivität, Kreativität, Wachstum usw., die in dem Beitrag gemacht werden, im Verhältnis zur Erfahrung der Jury und ihrer Kenntnis der Branche des Teilnehmers, als auch die Qualität des Beitrags selbst.

Die Juroren legen Wert auf gut geschriebene Beiträge, die: (1) viele Fakten, Zahlen und konkrete Ergebnisse enthalten; (2) nahe an der Wortgrenze für die jeweilige Kategorie liegen (d. h. nicht als zu kurz empfunden werden); und (3) durch Anhänge unterstützt werden, z. B. Links zu einer Unternehmenswebseite, Presseausschnitte, Arbeitsbeispiele usw.

Wir empfehlen angehenden Juroren, die Teilnahmeunterlagen für den Wettbewerb, für den sie Preisrichter sein möchten, anzufordern, damit sie sich mit den Kriterien und Einreichungsanforderungen vertraut machen können.

Nominierungen, die mit dem Goldenen Stevie ausgezeichnet wurden, sind auf der Website der Stevie Awards verlinkt. Dies ist ein gutes Hilfsmittel für angehende Juroren, um zu erfahren, wie eine hoch bewertete Stevie-Nominierung aussieht.

Beurteilungsprozess

Alle Einsendungen werden zunächst von Stevie Awards-Mitarbeitern geprüft, um sicherzustellen, dass die Teilnahmebedingungen erfüllt sind, dass die Einsendungen ordnungsgemäß formatiert sind, um zur Bewertung weitergeleitet zu werden, und dass die Einsendungen in den entsprechenden Kategorien eingereicht wurden.

Alle Juroren erhalten schriftliche Anweisungen zur Bewertung der Beiträge. Die Juroren werden gebeten, die in den einzelnen Beiträgen dargestellten Leistungen zu bewerten, und zwar auf der Grundlage a) ihrer eigenen Erfahrung und b) ihres Verständnisses der Leistung von Unternehmen und Einzelpersonen in der Branche des Nominierten in dem Zeitraum, für den die Teilnahmeberechtigung gilt, unter Berücksichtigung der Wirtschaftslage im Allgemeinen und der Branche des Nominierten im Besonderen. 

Bei Einsendungen in kreativen Medienkategorien werden die Juroren gebeten, die eingereichte Kurzbeschreibung zu den Kommunikationszielen zu lesen und die eingereichten Medien (Website, Video, Live-Event usw.) auf der Grundlage von Originalität, Kreativität und Produktionswert zu prüfen und zu bewerten, wie gut die Medien ihrer Meinung nach die angegebenen Kommunikationsziele erfüllen.

Alle Bewertungen werden online innerhalb eines Zeitfensters von zwei bis drei Monaten vorgenommen. Die Juryphase für die Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, die German Stevie Awards, und die Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards ist eröffnet.