The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has opened the 2023 (9^th annual) German Stevie Awards. The business award for the German-speaking European corporate world offers organizations from Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland the opportunity to enter their best projects and corporate achievements in numerous categories. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at stevieawards.com/GSA.

Companies and organizations of all sizes, public and private, profit or non-profit, as well as individuals from the business community can now submit nominations for the popular awards. Early entrants will benefit from a reduced award fee until December 7, 2022. 

Exciting new categories for the 2023 competition

A new category group for the 2023 awards competition is Thought Leadership. The new thought leadership categories include:

• Achievement in Thought Leadership
• Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year
• Thought Leader of The Year

There are a few new subcategories in other areas as well. The categories Best Use of AI & Machine Learning, Best Use of Augmented Reality, Food & Drink, Health, and Human Resources & Employee Experience have been added. In the Achievement Awards Categories, as of this year, Achievement in Diversity & Inclusion, and Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility are recognized. The new additions in the Events cagetory are Best eSports Event, Best Fashion Event, Best Thought Leadership Event, Best Healthcare & Wellness Event, Best Networking Event and Best Hackathon.  Under the New Products and Product Management Awards, the new subcategories for Business Technology Solution Categories are Construction Management Solution, and Legal Solution.

Mark your calendar:

All companies and organizations may submit as many nominations as they wish free of charge. Participants who submit their applications by the first deadline for participation, December 7, 2022, benefit from a discount of 25 euros on the award fees per successful nomination. Those who miss the December 7 participation deadline may still submit their applications until January 18, 2023.

For more information visit: stevieawards.com/GSA

Stevie^®-winner Tufin is a security policy management company specializing in the automation of security policy changes across hybrid platforms while improving security and compliance. Tufin simplifies management of some of the largest, most complex networks in the world, consisting of thousands of firewall and network devices and emerging hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Since its inception, Tufin solutions have been purchased by more than 2,000 customers in over 70 countries. Tufin’s Technical Support team is dedicated to making these deployments a reality for customers, leading them in their operationalization of Tufin to drive value and ROI to their business.

With three Centers of Excellence around the globe, Tufin offers 24x7 follow-the-sun support, several levels of fee-based technical support, and free opportunities for customer support and troubleshooting.

A major initiative across the company in 2021 was the migration of customers from the classic Tufin Orchestration Suite to a new platform known as Tufin Aurora. The support team was pivotal to the successful migration of customers to the new platform.

As customers schedule their migrations, the support team coordinates them across the global customer base to ensure there is enough staff to cover any troubleshooting issues that arise. Each customer has access to a dedicated Slack channel with on-call support engineers and their Tufin account team.

In addition, the team experienced a 60% increase in headcount globally since 2019 with a focus on hiring a more senior skills set. Many new hires on the support team have a more technical background and more years of experience. This not only increases the technical acumen of the entire team, but it means faster onboarding and easier case resolution.

Lastly, the team recently created a Support Escalation Team, dedicated to working on cases that are unable to be solved in support. The team receives these cases to solve or identifies where the bug is in the product and passes it on to R&D to fix.

Tufin won the Bronze Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year - Computer Hardware in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. 

Submit your nominations for the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

The Stevie^® Awards is pleased to share that we have a new representative in Japan ahead of the opening of the 10th annual Asia-Pacific Stevie^® Awards. Entries open for the 2023 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards on October 3, 2022. We look forward to recognizing innovative companies in Japan this year.

The Stevie Awards will partner with Issei Matsui, CEO of P&A LLC, a marketing strategist who has been in the advertising industry for over 30 years. Mr. Matsui’s areas of expertise include fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), sports marketing, automotive, information technology, and consumer electronics. Mr. Matsui expanded his services and started his own company in Tokyo, Japan in 2009, subsequently opening an office in Shanghai, China, soon after in 2011.

Since that time, Mr. Matsui has collaborated with companies in more than 15 countries, including companies like Procter & Gamble, Intel Security, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and BMW

“We are thrilled to have Mr. Matsui on the Stevie Awards team to help recognize organizations in Japan for their innovative accomplishments. We know there are many companies and professionals in Japan who deserve recognition, and we are glad to have found Mr. Matsui to help reach this market,” said Stevie Awards President, Maggie Miller.

“More than being selected to represent Japan at the Olympic games, I am honored to have been selected to represent Japan at the Stevie Awards. I will do my best to help Maggie and her team,” said Mr. Matsui.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards is the only business awards program to recognize innovation throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. The competition is open to all organizations across 29 nations of the Asia-Pacific region: large and small, for-profit and non-profit, public and private.

Some of the Asia-Pacific region’s most innovative organizations have won Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, including ABS-CBN Global, Cisco Systems, Delta Air Lines, Dentsu, DHL Express International (Thailand) Ltd., EventsAIR, Freelancer.com, Google, Great Eagle Holdings, Globe Telecom, HLC Group, Hong Kong Tourism Board, HP Inc., KEB HANA Bank, KEPCO, KT, MSLGROUP China, Ooredoo, PT Petrokimia Gresik, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Singapore Power, SM Supermalls, Sony, Strategic Public Relations Group Limited, Telkom Indonesia, VNPT Vinaphone Corporation, Viettel, Xiaomi, and more.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards focus on recognizing innovation in all its forms, wherever it is achieved in the workplace. Entries are accepted in eight languages - Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese.

Nominations will be accepted in the 2023 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards starting October 3, 2022. 

Complete entry details are available at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com. 

Stevie^® Award-winner Limitless is combining crowdsourcing and AI to help global businesses address their biggest customer service challenges with Gig Customer Service (GigCX). GigCX is the term they use for deploying a gig-based crowd of people to provide customer service and sales. Housed within the Limitless’ SmartCrowd™ platform, customers can connect with their most engaged customers and reward them for providing on-demand customer service.

Using this technology, organizations route enquiries through the Limitless platform, which distributes them to knowledgeable GigCX experts who are paid per task for resolving questions. Brands like Microsoft, Unilever, eBay and L’Oreal are using Limitless GigCX to connect with their most engaged customers, providing on-demand customer service that can flex in line with demand.

Limitless conducts annual research studies and reports to understand how GigCX is impacting the workforce and areas for improvement. Since receiving their Gold Stevie award, they have released new research that shows that 72% of customer service managers have added or plan to add gig talent to customer service or sales operations within the next 2 years.

Their findings also show that, although people are interested in flexibility and the freedom to earn money on their own terms, GigCX has another added benefit to other gig models. Experts are genuinely interested in helping people using their own knowledge for brands they love.

Limitless has also been featured in Forbes in the article “Meet the Startup Turning Customers into Next-Gen Customer Service for Brands They Love.” In the piece, Forbes references a study that shows there are “nearly 60 million gig workers in the U.S., representing about $1.2 trillion of U.S. GDP, [and] it’s estimated that by 2030, nearly 50% of the workforce will be engaged in the gig economy in some way.”

Limitless co-founders Megan Neale and Roger Beadle have over 20 years of experience in the customer support world. In a comment to Forbes, Ms. Neale says she believes “gig work will be a mix of primary full-time workers, GigCX workers, and AI bots working in harmony to produce the most efficient and best possible customer experience….once AI does its job to the capacity it's able to, handing that customer over to a real customer support agent with the skills to help quickly.

Limitless won the Gold Stevie Award for Sales or Customer Service Solutions Technology Partner of the Year.

Submit your nomination for the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Family-owned and operated Ace Office Furniture Houston is a Stevie®-winning top-rated furniture company based in Texas. They serve as a one-stop shop for many business owners in the area who rely on them, not only for quality office furniture, but also for their customer service offerings including highly skilled staff, onsite consultations, fast delivery, commercial office staging, and furniture repairs.Their business has a long track record of excellence in the region, drawing initial recognition in only 2 years from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), gaining an A+ Rating with the BBB for four years, and receiving the BBB Award for Excellence in 2019 and 2020.

Ace Office Furniture Houston strives to provide the best support to their customers for all of their business needs, and their expert consultants work closely with them to provide advice and guidance through the process of conceptualizing, designing, selecting, delivering, and installing their furnishings.

Since receiving their Bronze Stevie Award for Best in Sales Ethics, owner Kevin Astala, has been honored with inclusion in the Who’s Who in America. Mr Astala attributes his success to hard work and learning new skills and trades, he said in a press release. In addition to teaching himself internet webpage design, he has learned the intricacies of marketing and social media. Mr. Astala has also been featured in Millennium Magazine for his entrepreneurial skills and dedication to self-education.

In light of their continued success, Ace Office Furniture Houston has announced the expansion of their services to new areas in Texas.

Ace Office Furniture Houston won the Bronze Stevie Award for Ethics in Sales.

Submit nominations for the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Founded in 1993 by Jay Bruber, Stevie^®-winner Persolvent specializes in payment processing technologies for markets including education, professional service organizations, internet, government, before and after school programs, and enrichment programs.Persolvent views their customer relationships as true partnerships. They offer industry-leading technology and have a large customer base, but they are intentionally focused and small enough to be able to respond to customer needs with lightning-fast agility. 

Persolvent services and personnel were recognized in three different Stevie Awards categories: 

• AJ Kurkowski won the Gold Stevie Award for Customer Service Training Professional of the Year;
• Marit Faster won the Silver Stevie Award for Customer Service Leader of the Year; and
• Eleyo Customer Experience Strategy won the Bronze Stevie Award for Best Customer Feedback Strategy.

Since gaining this recognition, Persolvent has continued in its goal to better serve their customers. In Q1 2022, Eleyo’s Customer Experience Strategy saw a Net Promoter Score of 69, which is 33 points above the industry average and also the highest score that has been received since the pandemic in 2020.

In the time since receiving their awards, AJ Kurkowski has implemented a new team called the Enterprise Team, which will help implement the Eleyo software for the largest childcare and community education programs in the United States. Marit Fastner has joined the leadership team for a new 2022 Persolvent product. She is focused on building out the process for customer success from training to support for product launch.

Interested in submitting nominations for the
2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service?

In 2020, Stevie Award-winner Rona Jobe founded LVL-Up Strategies, a minority- and woman-owned small business based in Arlington, Virginia. She now serves as the CEO, working to propel small businesses to grow their potential by offering clients strategic advisement, operations design and implementation, marketing plans and execution, and business development guidance.

Jobe’s vision for LVL-Up Strategies is to help small businesses break the generic mold of how to grow their business. Instead of following a pattern from another business or figuring it out as the business grows, Jobe works to analyze each of her client's goals and current structure to define long-term strategies and customized next steps for success.

In addition, Jobe has a passion for supporting the careers of military and Department of State spouses. LVL-Up only employs military and Department of State spouses, so that they have the opportunity to grow their careers in an often unpredictable and stagnant work environment. This symbiotic connection of talented and driven individuals is critical to the company’s success.

LVL-Up Strategies already embraced a fully remote workforce prior to the pandemic. They have continued this success by creating and implementing a remote onboarding and training program for incoming staff, which has led to growth in staff, revenue, and client base in just one year.

Since earning the Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Business Services, LVL-Up Strategies has developed the LVL-Up Five Step Process for working with small businesses; the LVL-Up CEO Entrepreneur Roadmap, which guides individuals from “solopreneurs” to full-time CEOs; and the LVL-Up Remote Staff Onboarding Process. These tools have been the foundation to developing customized client tools and programs, and have ultimately led to further growth for the young company.

Rona Jobe won Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Business Services.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

The Stevie® Awards, organizers of the world’s premier business awards programs, have announced the winners of six Grand (“best in show”) Stevie Award trophies in The 2022 (19^th Annual) International Business Awards®, the world’s leading business awards competition.

Nominees in the 2022 IBAs were not able to apply for Grand Stevie Awards directly. Winners were determined by a points system based on the total number of awards won in the IBAs with a Gold Stevie win counting for three points, a Silver Stevie win for two points, and a Bronze Stevie win for 1.5 points, as well as having the highest average score in selected categories.

This year’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners in The International Business Awards were announced on 15 August. They and the winners of the Grand Stevies announced today will be recognized during an awards gala in London, England on 15 October.

Winners of the 2022 Grand Stevie Awards are:

HIGHEST-RATED COVID-19 RESPONSE NOMINATION

With an average score from the judges of 9.0/10, the Grand Stevie goes to UNICEF Cambodia, Communications Department, Phnom Penh, for their nomination “Using Communications To Protect And Inspire Cambodian Children During COVID-19,” which also won a Gold Stevie in the category Most Valuable Non-Profit Response.  This is the first Grand Stevie Award presented to Cambodia.

HIGHEST-RATED NEW PRODUCT OR SERVICE NOMINATION OF THE YEAR

Scalefocus, of Sofia, Bulgaria won the Gold Stevie Award for Best Healthcare Technology Solution for their nomination of SoundVision, and with an average score of 9.11/10 they also win the Grand Stevie for the highest-rated new product or service nomination.  This is the first Grand Stevie won by Bulgaria.

HIGHEST-RATED NOMINATION OF THE YEAR

With a remarkable average score of 9.8/10, the highest-rated nomination in the 19^th IBAs was submitted by The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kansas City, Missouri USA.  “VFW #StillServing” also won the Gold Stevie for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Non-Profit / Charity.

MOST HONORED PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCY

LLYC, Madrid, Spain wins this honor for the fourth consecutive year with a total of 45.5 award points earned with eight Gold, seven Silver, and five Bronze Stevie wins in public relations, new product, video, and event categories for themselves and a number of their clients.  Each Gold Stevie win counts for three points, each Silver Stevie win for two points, and each Bronze Stevie win for one-and-a-half points.

MOST HONORED MARKETING AGENCY

pH7 Communications, Shanghai, China wins this honor with 20.5 award points earned with five Gold, two Silver, and one Bronze wins in marketing and PR categories on behalf of several of their clients.  This is the first Grand Stevie win for the agency.

ORGANIZATION OF THE YEAR

With 65.5 award points earned through eight Gold, 11 Silver, and 13 Bronze Stevie wins in a variety of categories, the winner of the 2022 Grand Stevie for Organization of the Year goes to HALKBANK, Istanbul, Turkey.  HALKBANK is a leading Turkish bank.

“These six best-of-show Grand Stevie winners embody the breadth and quality of nominations we welcomed to the IBAs in 2022,” said Maggie Miller, president of the Stevie Awards. “As organizations are moving past some of the hurdles COVID-19 brought upon the world, the judges were highly impressed with the innovation, creativity, and tact in which these Stevie winners conducted business the past two years. We look forward to celebrating Grand Stevie Awards winners at the gala in October.”

The International Business Awards feature a wide variety of categories to recognize achievement in every facet of work life, including management awards, new product awards, marketing awards, PR awards, customer service awards, website awards, and more.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements in the 2022 IBAs were determined by the average scores of more than 300 professionals worldwide in the three-month judging process. Winners were selected from more than 3,700 nominations submitted by organizations in 67 nations.

The nomination process for the 2023 IBAs will open in February. For more information about The International Business Awards, including a complete list of all Stevie Award winners in the 2022 competition, visit www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

IBM Corporation and Skai CEO & Co-Founder Yoav Izhar-Prato Named Top Winners

The Stevie® Awards have announced today the winners of two Grand Stevie Awards in the seventh annual Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

With 56.5 award points, earned through Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie-winning nominations submitted by units in the USA and several other nations, IBM Corporation, headquartered in Armonk, NY USA, earns the Grand Stevie Award for Organization of the Year in the seventh annual Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

Joanne Wright, Vice President Enterprise Operations & Services, IBM shared "This recognition, the Grand Stevie Award for Organization of the Year, confirms IBM’s success navigating the incredible challenges faced by organizations and employees everywhere over the past few years. IBMers are proud to earn this prestigious award, which recognizes the hard work of our professionals worldwide. Thank you!"

A second Grand Stevie Award, for the Highest-Rated Nomination of the Year, goes to Yoav Izhar-Prato, CEO & Co-Founder of Skai, in Tel Aviv, Israel, who won the Gold Stevie for People-Focused CEO of the Year. His nomination received the highest average rating from the judges in the entire competition with an average score of 9.67/10.

The Stevie Awards for Great Employers are an international competition that recognizes 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.  The Stevie Awards are the organizers of this and seven other national and international business awards programs, including The American Business Awards® and The International Business Awards®.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the Stevie Awards for Great Employers were announced on August 8. More than 950 nominations from organizations in 26 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 100 professionals worldwide, acting as judges.

All winners will be celebrated during an awards ceremony on September 17 in Las Vegas.

The Grand Stevie Award for Organization of the Year is determined by a points system in which each Gold Stevie win earns three points, each Silver Stevie win two points, and each Bronze Stevie win one-and-a-half points. IBM’s 56.5 points is top among all participants in this year’s competition.

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
•    Thought Leadership
•    More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

Entries for the 2022 edition of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers will open in March.

Stevie Award-winner SmartHub is a programmatic, white-label RTB solution designed to facilitate ad tech market entry for companies that plan to set up their own branded marketplaces. It is designed for small and medium-sized ad tech businesses, ad networks, SSPs that need to build their own ad tech platforms while saving money and time. Their mission is to maintain the highest standards for marketplace transparency, accountability, and trust.

SmartHub was created in 2018, when a small team of skilled professionals grew their internal programmatic expertise. After this, they started to provide companies with robust technologies based on which enterprises could build their own independent ad marketplaces. With their unique  platform, customers can leverage technology that enables the most rapid market entry and continuing growth. Over the past two years, SmartHub has been able to advance their abilities in order to deploy a programmatic marketplace in just 7 days. Additionally, their company offers uncommon services such as ad tech outstaffing.

The SmartHub team has spent countless hours designing and building AdTech platforms for their clients. Their customers include those that have started and strengthened their ad businesses. They have also created a very responsive customer service team full of well-versed employees in numerous disciplines including tech, advertising, business development, and client relationships.

Since winning the Bronze Stevie for Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy, SmartHub has evolved significantly both in terms of technology and human resources. During 2020, SmartHub survived a global economic crisis and successfully entered a new technologic cycle, during which the business expanded to a new market – Israel - then explored the Asian region (Hong Kong, China), LATAM (Argentina, Uruguay), USA and Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine). Also in 2020, SmartHub technology was adopted by 59 new customers. The net profit during 2020 grew to reach the bar of $47,938.42. Income in 2020 increased in comparison to 2019 which is substantial growth for a young investment project.

Their agile approach, responsiveness to the market's change and attentiveness to the needs of their clients have defined the success of our product. During 2020, the team spent over 2,700 hours designing and building AdTech platforms for their clients. Сlient-centricity is central to their strategy, so during the pandemic, they optimally redistributed the SmartHub team and augmented expertise in technologies that boost the businesses of customers. SmartHub developed a tool that enables setting up an independent ad exchange that makes it possible to easily and quickly deploy and adjust it to the user’s needs. 

SmartHub won the Bronze Stevie for Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy at the 2022 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in submitting nominations in the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service?