Using AI in a variety of ways, Stevie-winner ThatWare LLP is optimizing digital marketing and improving customer experience.

Digital marketing is part of today’s landscape, and it's getting smarter by the minute. Smart devices abound. Consumers can ask chatbots all their questions, and artificial intelligence (AI) seems to permeate every corner of people’s lives. AI allows machines to learn from input over time and adjust their output accordingly, and that’s why it’s so valuable to businesses. By understanding consumers’ preferences and delivering personalized content, AI provides an improved customer experience, which is invaluable in digital marketing efforts.

With its ever-advancing tactics to cut out the human middleman when identifying marketing trends, AI is changing the digital landscape. Brands can leverage AI to automate their digital marketing and to save both time and money. The substantial advantages of AI technology are providing brands with the edge that gets them noticed in a competitive space.

Understanding Your Audience

AI can work to analyze data and to build a comprehensive picture of your target customers’ preferences. Once you have defined your customer personas, you can use AI to map their buying behaviors and to track their eventual purchasing decisions. As a marketer, you can use this intelligence to put products in front of your audience that they need, which makes purchasing decisions easy for them. A marketing strategy can evolve quickly and effectively with AI-driven analytics. 

Tuhin Banik, the founder of digital marketing company ThatWare LLP, aims to “positively disrupt the system” and to improve customer experience by using AI in a range of ways, including semantic engineering, natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analysis.

Productivity

The use of smart technology can help increase your productivity by allowing you to automate processes. You can outsource repetitive, time-consuming tasks and instead concentrate on strategizing and creating effective content. AI enables you to optimize the way you interact with your audience, and as AI continues to improve, the way your brand attracts new customers and keeps existing customers engaged to increase sales will continuously transform. 

Optimized Advertising

Your product or service has to reach the right audience to be successful, and with the increasing intelligence of AI, it’s simpler than ever to pinpoint your ideal customer. You can use AI to collect user information, to analyze that data, and then to predict what the customer will do or need in the future. This means digital marketers can target ads to match user data. 

You can be creative with AI too. For example, Topshop, a British high-street clothing brand, created an immersive AI experience in Moscow, Russia. Customers could download a catalog app and then use the in-store smart screens to virtually try on outfits. This innovation not only created buzz around a product, but it also allowed the brand to gather data that fed back into their AI marketing systems. Using that data, they could create even more focused campaigns in the future.

Customer Experience

AI technology allows brands to deliver an enhanced customer experience and to make their digital marketing strategies even more successful. You can use AI to track customer preferences and buying behaviors and then leverage these insights to make further suggestions. 

Digital marketing specialists are focusing on using developing technologies to advance their field in the future. In recognition of this commitment to driving faster results in digital marketing using AI, THATWARE LLP, of West Bengal, India, was presented with a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Startup of the Year - Business Services Industries category at The 2019 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Stevie-winner The LMC Group is a consulting firm that assists small to medium-sized businesses in updating their approach to training and engagement.

Having a process of learning and development in place for your employees is vital; it is the first step to improving employee engagement. With the right training and development program, you can positively impact efficiency and productivity and retain great employees. Remember to consider your end goals when putting a training program in place. A well-thought-out program needs to work for both the company and the employees. It must also deliver what you need when you need it.

Training Goals 

Look at your training program holistically. Ask yourself why you’re doing it and how the program is going to help you. Consider the problem you are trying to solve, and evaluate how the training you have in place is going to fix it. First you need to understand how to achieve your business goals with the training program, and then you must put measures in place that ensure you reach those objectives. 

Due to funding constraints, it can be difficult for smaller businesses to implement targeted employee training initiatives. If your small to midsized company needs guidance bringing an updated approach to your training and engagement systems, consider outsourcing. A niche of companies provide this service, including the LMC Group.

“It’s exciting to bring cutting-edge approaches to organizations lacking the funding, revenue, and resources that larger firms enjoy and often take for granted,” says an LMC Group representative.

By engaging your employees and showing them the benefits of learning systems, everyone involved is more likely to have a positive experience. The most impactful way to accomplish this is by designing trainings that meet defined needs. If you can't demonstrate to your staff members that their efforts in learning and development will be useful and effective, it will be difficult to persuade them to engage and to improve their skills. 

Evolution and Evaluation

You can't expect your years-old training and development program to keep pace with your business needs, technology, and workplace advances. You need to keep your training sessions fresh if you want to keep your employees enthusiastic about their learning. Don’t put out stale content if you wish to keep moving forward. Remember, the best learning and development programs are continually evolving and improving. Evaluate your training by seeing how employees interact with the program. Don’t forget to seek their input about how to make it tailored to their needs. 

Feedback

Ask your employees and service users about their pain points. If you have defined questions or problems to solve, you can better focus your efforts on these critical areas. If you use e-learning, for example, review the end-of-unit tests to ensure no questions are consistently being answered incorrectly. If such problems do exist, this is a sign to reevaluate how certain information is presented or to expand on that point in the training. You can also review customer satisfaction responses to ensure the training you have implemented has had the desired effect.  

Even if you are a small business, you can put some measures in place. You can either do this in house or through an external consultancy that can support you with various technologies and innovations. These days you can’t rely on a tired PowerPoint presentation or some dated online learning to help your employees develop. You need goal-specific training that fits the needs of your company and your clients and makes everyone’s experience more positive. 

The LMC Group, of Manchester, New Hampshire, United States, won a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Company of the Year - Business or Professional Services - Small category at The 2019 International Business Awards®. 

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Vietnam has become a popular location for business outsourcing, and Stevie-winner Swiss Post Solutions thrives on solving customer challenges in the most effective manner.

For decades, India ruled the roost as an outsourced software development destination. While it continues to attract businesses looking to build IT teams overseas, it’s not the only major country doing so. Most prominent among these emerging destinations is Vietnam. Its lower costs, favorable business policies, robust economy, and increasingly skilled workforce are driving investments from businesses like Intel, Samsung, IBM, and Microsoft.

Vietnam’s Rise Through the Rankings

In 2010, Gartner released a list of the top 30 countries for offshore IT services, and Vietnam made its first appearance in that year. Five years later, in a similar report by Gartner, Vietnam rose to one of the top five countries, and it has maintained its ranking ever since.

Vietnam’s outsourcing industry has grown between 20 and 35 percent every year over the past decade. In 2015, it surpassed $2 billion in revenue.

Spotlight on Vietnam, a PwC report released in 2017, highlighted business process outsourcing (BPO) as one of the key opportunities for foreign investors.

“The growth so far has been encouraging,” said Dinh Thi Quynh Van, general director of PwC Vietnam. “Vietnam is already the second-largest outsourcing partner for Japanese IT firms, just behind India. We hope to see many more industries in the future.”

The Vietnam Advantage

Almost two-thirds of Vietnam’s population is under 35 years of age. This young generation is highly skilled and motivated. According to a 2015 report by the World Economic Forum, Vietnam is one of the top 10 countries in terms of most engineering graduates.

Also, with the government’s push to teach English as a second language rather than a foreign language, this young workforce is actively scaling the language barrier that was once a cause for concern.

Workplace loyalty is strong in Vietnam, which is why they have low attrition rates (between 6 and 8 percent). This is another strong point in the country’s favor, as businesses grapple with high employee turnover in most Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries.

Besides an improving infrastructure and access to inexpensive, highly skilled talent, the government’s proactive efforts to attract foreign investment are also critical to Vietnam’s continued growth. The Doing Business 2020 report, by World Bank, ranked Vietnam 70th among 190 economies in ease of doing business. As of October 2019, foreign direct investment (FDI) into Vietnam has risen by 7.4 percent year over year.

Challenges in Outsourcing to Vietnam

As with outsourcing to just about any country in the APAC region, cultural, logistical, and legal challenges present themselves when working with Vietnamese providers. One way to anticipate these challenges and to learn how to tackle them is to send an on-ground team to Vietnam that can build relationships and get familiar with the Vietnamese culture. This will help organizations understand the business and political landscape, including taxation, paperwork, and procedures. It will also allow a business to get a head start on recruitment.

There are also productivity challenges that come with working with remote teams. This can be addressed by following best practices, instituting training, and ensuring extensive documentation.

Finally, Vietnam currently does not have the infrastructure to support large teams with thousands of employees. At the moment, the country is best suited for small to midsize operations.

One of Many

One of the companies that bagged a Silver Stevie® Award in the Company of the Year - Business or Professional Services - Large category at The 2019 International Business Awards® was Swiss Post Solutions Vietnam, which is based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

“We are a young, competitive, and innovative organization that thrives on solving customer challenges in the most effective manner,” says Ha Doi, corporate marketing executive at Swiss Post Solutions.

Swiss Post Solutions, which focuses on providing high-quality document management, BPO, and IT operational services, is one of many Vietnamese companies backed by a young team with an innovative culture. Any of these could be your next outsourcing match as you scale your business.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

As mobile ad fraud becomes more sophisticated, it becomes more difficult to catch using traditional methods. Stevie-winner Scalarr, Inc. is a mobile fraud detection company that uses machine learning to identify and prevent fraud.

Online fraud is almost as old as the internet itself, and as this technology progressed, fraud evolved and kept pace. In mobile ad fraud, fraudsters abuse mobile advertising technology to swindle online publishers, advertisers, and supply partners.

According to The Economic Cost of Bad Actors on the Internet, Ad Fraud 2019, by Cheq, a cybersecurity company based in New York, United States, direct and indirect economic and social costs of global ad fraud could amount up to $30 billion in 2019. 

“I have studied the economic costs of fraud in many sectors for decades, and I was left stunned by the scale of fraud in online advertising,” economist Roberto Cavazos said in the report.

Cavazos is a professor at the University of Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, and he worked on the report with Cheq.

AppFlyer, a mobile app analytics firm headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, monitored 2.5 billion installs across 9,500 mobile apps in the first six months of 2019 and extrapolated their results to a global scale. They revealed a whopping 22.6 percent of nonorganic app installs globally could be classified as fraudulent. They published this and other findings in a report titled State of Mobile Fraud, 2019.

The Different Faces of Mobile Ad Fraud

Fraudsters attempting to steal advertising budgets are an ingenious lot. According to Stevie-winner Scalarr, a mobile ad fraud detection company based in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, new and increasingly sophisticated frauds emerge every day. These include smart bots, intelligent device farms, and mixed fraud. 

“Fraudsters have become so smart that you can’t catch them by traditional methods anymore,” says Olga Bazarova, marketing lead at Scalarr.

The AppFlyer report reiterates this sentiment. It reveals that fraudsters are reacting to protection measures at an unprecedented pace. In 2018, it took them a month or two to react; now they do so in a couple of days. 

The upshot of many of these reports is that mobile fraud is ubiquitous, and no platform or publisher is safe.

“Mobile marketers tend to believe that ‘trusted’ traffic sources, such as Facebook, Google, and ad video networks, are a panacea against fraud, and they redistribute marketing budgets there. In 2019, though, we saw a lot of examples of fraud on trusted sources, confirming that fraudsters always follow the money,” said Bazarova.

Mobile ad fraud targets all stages of online advertising, from impressions to clicks to app installs. It even targets in-app purchases. The Financial Times, a daily newspaper headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom, was shocked by the scale of domain spoofing against its site. In domain spoofing, fraudsters eat into advertising budgets by masquerading as a popular domain that can display ads.

“The scale of the fraud we found is jaw-dropping,” says Anthony Hitchings, the digital advertising operations director at the Financial Times. “The industry continues to waste marketing budgets on what is essentially organized crime.”

AI to the Rescue

The speed and scale at which mobile ad fraud has evolved indicates it’s not something mobile developers or marketers can tackle alone. Detecting fraudulent installs is a mammoth task requiring analysis of numerous parameters and correlations.

Mobile ad fraud intelligence and protection solutions are increasingly and successfully relying on machine learning (ML) and big data to identify and to prevent fraud. Scalarr, AppFlyer, Cheq, and several other companies offering fraud detection and protection use ML algorithms to counter the attacks and to ensure marketers acquire only real users.

While the assumption is that fraudsters can’t work around these AI-backed countermeasures, only time will tell how this plays out. 

Scalarr Inc. recently won a Silver Stevie® Award in the Tech Startup of the Year - Services category and a Bronze Stevie® in the Startup of the Year - Business Services Industries category at The 2019 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Stevie-winner Cubic Transporation Systems has capitalized on the need for transportation services to create a service that allows travelers to plan effectively and stay on the move.

In the next decade, research suggests that fewer than 25 percent of Americans will own private cars. Instead, people will be making smarter choices inspired by environmental or budgetary concerns. Car sharing and taxicab-style options, such as Uber, are becoming even more popular. Travelers are also using traffic management apps to plan and to pay for their journeys on public transport to help ensure delay-free commuting. The future of transportation in cities is expected to change radically in the future, and mobility as a service (MaaS) has a large part to play in that.

What Is Mobility as a Service (MaaS)? 

Mobility as a service, or transport as a service, places the consumer firmly at the center of the travel experience. MaaS provides an on-demand, mobile-friendly platform for commuters. It seamlessly integrates a combination of transport methods, from bike sharing to taxis to short-term car leasing. From travel planning to end payment, the consumer can organize an entire trip via the MaaS platform. By simply subscribing to an app such as NextBus, you will have real-time passenger information at your fingertips. 

Whether you want to access an electric scooter to whiz around your city or you want to find the best route to your next business meeting, there is a specific MaaS app to get you there. Your journey will be faster, easier, and more affordable than if you’d used traditional transport methods. 

Cities that buy into MaaS, or what is sometimes called smart mobility, aim to reduce traffic congestion and to make getting around more efficient. 

Benefits of Mobility as a Service

The benefits of MaaS are numerous. Both end users and transport authorities note the following as reasons for its success:

• An Intelligent Service: The personalized service MaaS provides is undoubtedly a huge plus. An app can build a relationship between consumer and provider by using past journey information and data gleaned from a user’s profile, meaning apps can continually refine travel suggestions and maintain all-important customer focus.
• Secure Payment: With a variety of payment methods, users can pay for their trips without the hassle of carrying cash for each transport method used. Using a smartphone, smartwatch, or subscription service, travelers can plan the trips that best meets their needs—without worrying about payment. 
• Simple Route Planning: When using multiple transportation methods, the ability to plan a journey in real time is invaluable. MaaS apps allow the consumer to get from one place to another by any method that suits his or her previously logged preferences, and the apps can also map a route that avoids congestion. 

With the continued interest of city transport planners and planning solution end users, the global conversation regarding MaaS has become more intense. Cubic Transportation Systems, from San Diego, California, USA, is comprised of innovators who, with their Trafficware, NextBus, and other proprietary systems, are collaborating with cities from Vancouver, Canada, to Sydney, Australia, to keep travelers moving. 

The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than half the world’s population will be living in urban areas, compared to only one-third in 1970. With this massive change in global living habits, planners need to deploy intelligent solutions, such as MaaS, to ensure transport continues to flow. 

Because of their industry-leading MaaS travel solutions, Cubic Transportation Systems was named the winner of four Stevie® Awards at The 2019 International Business Awards®. Cubic received awards in the following categories: Gold in the Big Data Solution category; Two Silvers in Integrated Mobile Experience and Travel; and Bronze in Best New Product or Service of the Year – Transportation.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Stevie-winner Chíc Creations Heaven started out as a two-person operation that has since expanded to two locations. Read about Daniel and Rebecca's story of growth and success.

Think about the success stories you love. Maybe one of your heroes or heroines overcame great adversity to be a successful athlete, or maybe that person became a doctor and now serves those suffering across the world. Maybe he or she wrote a song that changed your life. Everyone and everything has a story, and the most inspiring tales tend to be those of victory, where an individual or group rises up and conquers with integrity. In many cases, these heroes and heroines receive recognition for their work, whether that’s media coverage, a title, a medal, a trophy, or another award.

Daniel Foster and his wife, Rebecca, built their business, Chíc Creations Heaven—Gardening, Handyman, Joinery, Decorating, from scratch. Daniel went from having no work to operating two branches that serve Bridlington, England, and Yorkshire, England. He projects opening two more branches in the next 18 months. Receiving their due recognition, Chíc Creations Heaven recently won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Startup of the Year - Consumer Services Industries category at The 2019 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Unemployed & Depressed to Business Owner

Daniel was unemployed and living in a seaside town with waning seasonal business. Tourists just were not coming to the area as much, and Daniel eventually started to fall into depression. In the meantime, he did odd jobs for his landlord to earn extra income, which used the labor and trade skills he had acquired throughout his life. 

“This gave me the confidence boost to seek more work in this area,” explains Daniel.

Daniel had worked previously in sales, and he began to use social media to launch Chíc Creations Heaven. He also focused on doing reputable work at an affordable price. If Daniel couldn’t complete the job himself, he hired another tradesman to complete it, paying a good wage.

“A happy worker is a productive one,” says Daniel.

The company has even generated temporary employment opportunities for seasonal workers. 

For businesses or individuals looking to emulate this model, here are five takeaways:

• Don’t discredit any of your life or work experiences.

• Being resourceful is essential to achieving business success.

• Even in this tech-focused economy, practical solutions at affordable costs are still pillars for success.

• Social media is a driving force for budding entrepreneurs.

• Paying people fairly helps build a strong reputation and helps grow a business.

Two-Person Operation Opens Two Locations in One Year

Daniel and his wife, Rebecca, started this business. Daniel focused on operations, while his wife worked on marketing and graphics and took charge of the accounts. They currently manage a team of six, as well as two branches servicing North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, Humberside, and West Yorkshire (all in England). They passed their annual business goal of over £10,000 in one month, and they earned a profit of nearly £30,000 in the first year alone. 

They increased growth and had a particularly significant breakthrough after successfully putting up PROMESH security for a local beloved nonprofit, the Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary rescues and rehabilitates approximately 4,000 wild animals a year from anywhere in the United Kingdom and transports them back to their natural habitats. The nonprofit just celebrated 10 years.

“We gained a lot of business where they are located after that job was complete,” Daniel shared. 

Here are five more takeaways for aspiring entrepreneurs:

• There is no shame in starting small. 

• Trial and error is part of growing.

• Perseverance is key.

• Referrals help grow your business.

• Doing the right thing counts.

Winning Awards Is Good for Business 

Awards like the Stevie® Awards offer a standard and a metric for success that current and prospective clients, partners, and businesses in other verticals understand. After a successful first year, Daniel wanted to know where his business stood in the world. He searched and found the Stevie® Awards and submitted the application. As a result, Chíc Creations Heaven is now a Gold Stevie® Award winner.

The win strengthened this company’s brand locally, nationally, and internationally. It also instilled a deeper confidence in the Fosters and inspired them to pursue greater success as entrepreneurs. The Fosters’ goal is for Chíc Creations Heaven—Gardening, Handyman, Joinery, Decorating to become a national company in England and a major employer that offers great wages, benefits, and training to those who want to further their trade skills.

Stevie-winner KÖNIGSKLASSE#1 is a video production team that travels to their clients' locations to produce corporate videos in order to make business leaders more comfortable and confident in front of the camera.

Video marketing is a vital tool in your brand promotion toolbox, and it’s becoming more essential to ROI every day. In 2019, it is no longer sustainable to avoid video content because you’re scared of the medium or you don’t think you have the resources to create something watchable. Success means hopping on board and understanding why video is one of the most profitable and versatile digital marketing tools around.

Videos Increase Conversions

According to Forrester’s research into digital marketing, if you add a product video to your landing page, it is possible to double your conversion rate. Similarly, if you embed an informational video about your service, you are more likely to see sales of that service. 

Hiring a great video production team is an investment worth making, as they can help you create an engaging video that showcases your company. Although it is possible to create a corporate video with online tools, poorly produced content can turn off customers. To ensure your video is giving you the best possible return on investment, focus on top-quality content presented in a slick way.

Know, Like, and Trust

Many businesspeople use the “know, like, and trust” mantra, but building trust truly helps your audience engage with your company. If you’re using video to provide potential customers with useful, interesting information, you are creating a valuable relationship. Whether you’re using your video content on your company website or getting it in front of your audience via your social media channels, you need to concentrate on trust, not just traffic. 

As Martin Grosse of KÖNIGSKLASSE#1 notes, “the corporate video market will shift within the process of digital transformation … to revolutionize the thinking of how a corporate video should look and how it should be consumed.”

Stevie-winner KÖNIGSKLASSE#1, which is located in Munich, Germany, makes a point of traveling to a company’s location in order to make business-to-business (B2B) corporate videos. This allows the C-suite of the business to be comfortable in front of the camera, which lets them shine.

Engagement with Content

LinkedIn is the social media channel of choice for engaging CEOs and decision-makers. Video is an integral part of getting in front of your audience and capturing their attention, and video plays automatically in your LinkedIn feed, which also helps to increase engagement. Additionally, LinkedIn is the perfect platform to showcase your company’s authenticity, allowing your C-suite to demonstrate the human side of the business. 

One pitfall of video content marketing is that B2B corporate videos can look very similar. That’s why you need to present your content in a way that keeps people watching. In addition to showing your brand’s accessibility, keep in mind how your audience is likely to be viewing your video. According to Insivia, mobile views are on the rise as more and more people check their social media platforms on the go. Google reveals that people who use smartphones are 1.4 times more likely to feel a sense of personal connection to video content they watch on a mobile device.

The key to a successful video marketing campaign is creating entertaining content that people are likely to share. To do this, it’s important to demonstrate value to your audience and keep them engaged in your message. 

In recognition of its innovative approach to video marketing commitment, KÖNIGSKLASSE#1 earned a Silver Stevie® Award in the Company of the Year - Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations - Small category at The 2019 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The International Business Awards?

Business Awards Program to Celebrate Excellence Worldwide at Vienna Event

High-achieving organizations and executives around the world have been recognized as Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie® Award winners in The 16th Annual International Business Awards®, the world's only international, all-encompassing business awards program.

Nicknamed the Stevies from the Greek word for "crowned," the awards will be presented at a gala event on Saturday, 19 October at the Andaz Vienna am Belvedere Hotel in Vienna, Austria. Tickets for the event are on sale now at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie winners were selected from more than 4,000 nominations received from organizations and individuals in 74 nations. All organizations worldwide are eligible to compete in The International Business Awards, and can submit entries in a wide range of categories, including management awards, company of the year awards, marketing awards, public relations awards, customer service awards, human resources awards, new product awards, IT awards, web site awards, and more. 

More than 250 executives worldwide participated on 12 juries this year to determine the Stevie winners.

LLYC, a global communications and public affairs consulting firm headquartered in Madrid, Spain won 17 Gold Stevie Awards, more than any organization has ever won in a single edition of the IBAs.

Among the other top winners of Gold Stevie Awards are MSLGROUP, USA with 10; IBM, USA (nine), ASDA’A BCW, United Arab Emirates (seven); Ooredoo, Qatar (six); Thai Life Insurance Plc., Thailand (six), Dan Lok Education, Canada (five); Jeunesse Global, USA (five), PT Petrokimia Gresik, Indonesia (five); The Audacious Agency, Australia (four), Makers Nutrition, USA (four), The XD Agency, USA (four), and Zeep Medical, Australia (four).

Deutsche Post DHL, with nominations submitted by affiliates worldwide, won eight Gold Stevies and 45 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevies in total.

Other organizations with eight or more Stevie wins include Dell Technologies Ltd., worldwide; KocSistem Bilgi ve Iletisim Hizm. A.S., Turkey; PJ Lhuillier, Inc (PJLI), Philippines; SM Supermalls, Philippines; Strategic Public Relations Group, China; Switching-Time, China; Ulled Asociados C.R.P. S.A., Spain; Viettel Group, Vietnam; WNS Holdings (P) Ltd., India; and Yapi Kredi Bank, Turkey. The five nations that have the most winning nominations are the United States, Turkey, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines.

A complete list of all 2019 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners by category is available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

During the week of 19 August the winners of the Best of the IBA Awards, five best-of-competition prizes, will be announced.  Winners will be determined by a tally of the total number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevies won by organizations, and will be presented with Grand Stevie Award trophies in Vienna.

For high-resolution photos of the Stevie Award trophy or International Business Awards logo, visit http://stevieawards.com/iba/photos-and-logos. Other information and resources for press are available at http://stevieawards.com/iba/media-inquiries-news-service-list

• Bewerbung per Video
• Keine Teilnahmegebühren für die Company of the Year Kategorien 
• Viele neue Kategorien
• Festliche Preisverleihung in Wien in brandneuem Hotel
  

Es ist wieder soweit. Die Stevie^® Awards loben die diesjährigen International Business Awards^® aus. Unternehmen und Einzelpersonen aus der ganzen Welt können sich jetzt wieder mit ihren geschäftlichen Leistungen aus allen Bereichen der Arbeitswelt bewerben. Prämiert werden Leistungen, die seit dem 1. Januar 2018 erbracht wurden. 

Frühentschlossene Teilnehmer profitieren dabei von reduzierten Teilnahmegebühren. Wer seine Bewerbung bis zum 10. April einreicht, spart dabei bares Geld. Die Teilnahmefrist zu den regulären Konditionen läuft bis zum 8. Mai. Und wer ein bisschen mehr Zeit braucht, der darf mit der Zahlung einer Nachgebühr seine Unterlagen auch noch bis zum 12. Juni einreichen. 

Für dieses Jahr haben die Organisatoren einige spannenden Neuerungen eingeführt.

Bewerbung per Video
In den Kategorien Company of the Year Awards, Marketing, Neue Produkte & Dienstleistungen sowie in den PR-Awards dürfen die Teilnehmer jetzt ein Video mit einer Länge von bis zu fünf Minuten, anstelle des traditionell verfassten Stevie Awards-Essays oder der Fallstudie, einreichen. 

„Gerade im Marketing und in der PR spielen (Bewegt-)bilder heute eine große Rolle. Die Bewerbung ihrer Kampagnen in Form eines Videos aufzubereiten, birgt für die Teilnehmer eine Vielzahl an Möglichkeiten, um die erbrachten Leistungen der Experten-Jury umfassender zu präsentieren und wirklich näherzubringen“ erklärt Michael Gallagher, Präsident und Gründer der Stevie^® Awards. „Auch neue Produkte und Dienstleistungen können durch ein Video dynamischer dargestellt und beschrieben werden. Wir sind sehr gespannt darauf, wie kreativ die Teilnehmer diese neue Einreichungsform nutzen werden.“ 

Kostenfreie Teilnahme in den Company of the Year Awards
In der Regel ist bei der Einreichung von Nominierungen bei den IBAs eine Teilnahmegebühr fällig. Nur einzelne Kategorien sind davon ausgenommen. In diesem Jahr verzichten die Stevie® Awards erstmalig auf die Teilnahmegebühren der 35-Branchen Kategorien in den Company of the Year Awards.

Die Gold-, Silber- und Bronze-Preisträger dieser Kategorien, nehmen dann automatisch an der öffentlichen Abstimmung des People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Companies teil. Damit haben Preisträger in diesen Kategorien die Möglichkeit, gleich zwei Preise zu gewinnen: einen von unseren Fachjurys verliehenen Preis und den anderen, der von der Öffentlichkeit gewählt wird. 

Viele neue Kategorien
Den Teilnehmern stehen wieder eine große Auswahl an Kategorien zur Verfügung. Beispielsweise die 

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

Auch in diesem Jahr gibt es in den einzelnen Award-Bereichen wieder eine Vielzahl an neuen Kategorien. Komplett überarbeitet wurden etwa die Kategorien der Live Event Awards. Hier stehen den Teilnehmern nun eine viel größere Auswahl an Kategorien zur Verfügung, die thematisch gruppiert wurden. 
Auch in den Video-Awards finden sich viele neue Einzelkategorien, wie beispielsweise zu den Themen Corporate Social Responsibility, Fashion & Lifestyle oder Science & Education. Die IT Awards zeichnen ab diesem Jahr auch die beste technische Supportstrategie und -implementierung sowie die beste technische Supportlösung aus. Eine komplette Übersicht finden Sie hier. 

Preisverleihung in brandneuem Luxushotel ANDAZ Vienna am Belvedere
Die Preisträger der Stevie Awards werden ab Juni von spezialisierten Jurygremien mit über 150 Fachjuroren ermittelt. Die Ergebnisse werden am 13. August bekanntgegeben. Die Stevie Awards Trophäen und Medaillen werden den Preisträgern in diesem Jahr in dem brandneuen Luxushotel Andaz Vienna am Belvedere in Wien verliehen. Dazu findet am 19. Oktober ein exklusives Gala-Bankett statt. 

Wenn Sie jetzt loslegen möchten, um Ihre Bewerbung optimal aufzubereiten, erhalten Sie hier Ihre Teilnahmeunterlagen und registrieren Sie sich direkt auf der Awards-Webseite.   

Sehen Sie hier ein kurzes Video mit Michael Gallagher über die International Business Awards® 2019.