Illumis™, by Valassis, a Vericast business, is a transformative marketing platform that combines best-in-class technologies, innovative media and robust intelligence to empower marketers to directly tie insight-led strategies to high-performing consumer content.

Consumers are constantly adapting to today’s realities, embracing new interests, and consuming different media. This shifting behavior, coupled with a landscape that is rapidly evolving, is a challenge for marketers seeking to build integrated strategies responsive to today’s consumer.

Illumis was purposefully built to plan, execute, and optimize marketing in a seamless way to expand reach and improve results. This unified marketing platform helps marketers keep pace with the changes in consumer behavior; unifies the disparate tools marketers must manage and balance when creating campaigns; and removes silos around data and execution.

The platform offers a competitive, data-informed approach to omnichannel media buying, fueled by the powerful, predictive intelligence of the two-time award-winning Valassis Consumer Graph™. The Consumer Graph unifies massive amounts of data by making 7 trillion daily model calculations to help customers improve marketing strategy, audience targeting, engagement and results.

How Illumis brings data together to uncover consumer motivation is unique. Using patented analyses and rich text mining on over 110 billion bid stream signals every day, they can discover consumer interest as well as a propensity to buy. They have access to 33 billion daily location signals to understand where consumers like to shop and where they live. This data helps to build a more complete, custom audience for each campaign. All the data is anchored to a household for stability and for the ability to scale – to neighborhoods and targeting across channels. With this, Illumis allows advertisers to discover new high-value markets, targets, and ways to reach consumers. It also spotlights the best media – across both print and digital channels – to connect with the right audience to drive commerce. Illumis uses machine-learning for real-time optimization and to continuously learn and improve, sparking further discovery for consumers and growth for marketers.

There are challenges around the fragmented nature of marketing technologies. Illumis’ integrated platform helps to solve those pain points by delivering meaningful multichannel engagement with an architecture that minimizes data loss and unifies intelligence for optimal results.

For example, longtime Valassis Direct Mail Insert client, La-Z-Boy, wanted to drive sales as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and stores reopened, pivoting to digital ads ahead of an omnichannel approach. Predictive data in Illumis revealed high-propensity shoppers in-market, who the company engaged with through Display Ads and Direct Mail Inserts. Illumis also identified prospects outside the trade area who received Display Ads alone. Digital ads extended consumer reach and outperformed industry benchmarks. Overall, the omnichannel campaign influenced $2.4M in revenue and a 15:1 return on ad spend.

“The discussions, the planning, and the next steps were so professional, respectful and smart,” said Kevin Mauldin, La-Z-Boy Owner. “(It) reassured me that Valassis is still an awesome partner.”

Additionally, Forrester conducted a Total Economic Impact™ study that evaluated the potential financial impact and return on investment for brands using Illumis. Forrester developed a composite organization and aggregate three-year financial analysis based on interview data, which yielded a 110% increase in revenue from ads; nearly 4:1 incremental return on advertising spend; and an 83% increase in ROI – all without increasing costs from previous marketing platforms. Details here: https://intelligence.valassis.com/rs/275-QRU-089/images/Forrester-TEI-Of-Illumis-From-Valassis_March-2020_Final_Updated-20200903.pdf

Driving results and building connections comes down to capitalizing on high-impact moments that deliver the right message at the right time to the right consumer – which requires reaching audiences through several, high-impact media formats. A recent Vericast study found when consumers see an ad in print and online, 52% say it captures their attention. Not only does Illumis help marketers measure what consumers do in these moments, it makes it easier to understand what media drove engagement. Using a closed-loop connection with measurement and campaign insights, marketers can refine strategies and media mix to grow results from campaign to campaign.

More recently, the power of the Illumis integrated platform enabled olive oil company Filippo Berio to increase household penetration and drive in-store sales at key retailers across the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast. Using data from Illumis, the campaign targeted high-intent consumers who grocery shop in-store, omnichannel and use delivery, and the profile was continuously optimized by real-time sales. Consumers were targeted when activity like recipe lookups indicated they were in a buying mindset. The display advertising campaign ran in two flights, spaced one month apart, and outperformed both viewability and click-through-rate benchmarks. Both flights of the campaign drove a 6% sales lift at a key retailer, surpassing the benchmark of 1.1% - 5.7%.

“Working with Valassis and their wealth of data allows us to target [the right] consumers to drive household penetration and trial for our brand in a way that is efficient for our campaign and budget,” said Meghan Boyd, Marketing Manager at Filippo Berio.

Valassis won the Gold Stevie Awards for Marketing/Public Relations Solution in The 2021 American Business Awards ®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards?

• Calder Capital, LLC is a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm for small privately held companies
• The firm grew significantly despite the coronavirus pandemic, which dropped the industry average by roughly 20%; Calder’s revenue grew by 85% and transactions by 74%

About Calder Capital, LLC

Calder Capital is a lower middle market Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory Firm focused on representing sellers of industrial, distribution, and business services companies, as well as strategic buyers seeking platform and bolt-on acquisitions in the same market segments. 

Founded in 2013 by Max Friar, the boutique mergers and acquisitions firm is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At its core, the company spends its days calculating the value of small privately held companies and subsequently engaging with the owners of those companies to locate buyers and consummate a sale transaction with the buyer that is the best fit in terms of price, purchase structure, and continuity for the business. Typical clients are industrial, distribution, or service businesses with 10-100 employees where the owner has no natural successor and wishes to transition out of their business generally for retirement purposes. 

Prior to 2020, Calder operated out of one office and had never broken 23 transactions in a single year. The company had experienced growth in most years of its existence, but 2020 was truly a watershed period in terms of breakout growth, despite COVID negatively affecting the M&A markets. In 2020, the firm opened four new offices and closed 40 successful transactions, which represents an 85% increase in revenue and a 74% increase in closed transactions compared to 2019. 

Led by Founder and Managing Partner, Max Friar, the firm took a number of intentional steps that fostered its growth in the face of the coronavirus backdrop that decimated deals nationally by double digits. Calder Capital’s initiatives include: launching a service offering specifically focused on helping distressed/turnaround businesses locate buyers quickly; catalyzing a Franchise Outreach Program specifically targeted at helping franchise owners transition successfully; implementing a sales program that targets 300 business per week to inform them of Calder’s services, and deploying a Buy-Side M&A Services program that guarantees unlisted leads for clients. 

Calder’s achievements, particularly in 2020, are significant because M&A transactions were down 13-15% across all sectors internationally and down 22% in US-based small businesses. Despite this, Calder Capital has grown significantly in the face of strongly unfavorable industry headwinds. 

Calder Capital won the Gold Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Company of the Year - Financial Services - Small, a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Fastest Growing Company of the Year - Up to 100 Employees, and a Bronze Stevie Award for Entrepreneur Categories - Entrepreneur of the Year - Financial Services in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• airSlate is a global technology company that provides no-code business process automation and document management solutions
• The company’s goal of solving a simple problem evolved into expanded solutions and processes that now serve millions of users around the world 

About airSlate

airSlate is a global SaaS technology company serving tens of millions of users worldwide with its no-code business process automation and document management solutions. airSlate's PDF editing, e-signature workflow, and business process automation solutions empower users to digitally transform their businesses to run faster and more efficiently. 

airSlate was founded in 2008 with the goal of solving a simple problem that originally had nothing to do with workflows: how to create fillable and editable forms and documents from PDF files. Today, the product that came from the original effort, pdfFiller, is used by millions of people around the globe. Since then, airSlate has expanded its solutions and no-code workflow automation to empower non-technical users to digitally transform their front and back-office business processes, such as employee and customer onboarding, sales, and ordering workflows, contracts, and payments. 

Nearly 700k customers and more than 87 million users have achieved significant improvements in the delivery and effectiveness of their departments through airSlate’s fully digital, remote-work-first environment. Individuals and teams can collaborate at any time, from any device, on any cloud, supported by industry-leading security and compliance standards to keep all important data safe and secure. 

With exponential growth to its user base, fresh financing, new product launches and integrations, and a rapidly expanding global team, airSlate has seen significant momentum in the business process automation, e-signature, and document management markets since 2019. In 2020, buoyed by the pandemic and an increasingly global, remote work environment, airSlate’s user base skyrocketed. 

The company launched its newest product to expand its portfolio, offering an end-to-end workflow ecosystem for customers. airSlate’s solution gives teams the power to build and automate any part of their workflows using a single, no-code, easy-to-configure solution. In addition, airSlate announced several major integrations, including with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft. 

The company’s launch of its airSlate product in 2020 was a significant differentiator for the business and what was currently available in the market. airSlate’s closest competitors only offer point-based solutions, meaning customers have to bring together multiple disparate systems to meet their workflow goals. The launch of airSlate eliminated that need, offering up the first of its kind, end-to-end workflow automation solution for teams. 

airSlate won the Gold Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year - Up to 2,500 Employees and a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Computer Software - Large in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

Employee recognition does pretty much what it says on the packet: it’s about recognizing the hard work that your staff has done, and rewarding them for it. 

It sounds simple, but it’s actually a lot more complex than you may at first realize. It’s done in many ways and for many different reasons. This article will break all this down for you, and explain why employee recognition is so important to your business.

What Is the Purpose of Employee Recognition?

Employee recognition is carried out in order to meet three main objectives: 

To Showcase Achievements

It feels great just to get a simple “thank you”, doesn’t it? That’s what showcasing achievements is all about. 

It gives your employees the opportunity to admire each other’s work, as well as learn from it. 

Take this example. Say you run a business VoIP service. You sell communication services to help companies stay connected, using a mixture of both traditional conference call methods and online tools.

Imagine a cloud architect of yours has recently done a particularly good job. They’ve met all their targets and even come up with some new ideas. Showcasing their achievements to the rest of the company by doing something as simple as publicly thanking them on the company’s social media can go a long way. Not only will it boost the morale of that individual employee, but it can also inspire the rest of the company to work harder.

This takes us to the next objective: motivation.

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For Motivation

Showing employee recognition can increase motivation for all employees. To continue the original example, imagine that the same social media post is seen by employees in other departments. Seeing another member of staff being publicly praised and thanked can inspire someone to work harder in the hopes that they will also enjoy that reward.

This of course applies to other types of recognition and reward as well. Employees that see other people being rewarded, even in non-corporate public sectors like restaurants or pubs, are much more likely to increase their engagement and productivity as a result. It’s a rule that applies across the board.

To Reinforce Company Values

This is an important one. Recognizing employees’ efforts can reinforce the values that your business holds. For example, if you’re rewarding a cloud engineer and recognizing their work, praise their innovative outlook and their problem-solving skills.

If you run a newsletter builder software, you could award recognition to an employee that has shown exceptional time management and written communication skills.

It’s all about realizing what your values as a company are and bolstering them by rewarding employees that demonstrate them.

Types of Employee Recognition

Now we arrive at the nitty-gritty. What are the types of employee recognition and when should you use them?

• Peer recognition
• Superior recognition
• Attributed recognition
• Anonymous recognition
• Social recognition
• Private recognition
• Behavior recognition
• Achievement recognition

All of these kinds of recognition are fairly self-explanatory - but the real trick is knowing when to use each one.

Say, for example, that you run an appointment booking app. One of your employees has reached a sales target and deserves recognition for their efforts.

Achievement-based recognition is the way to go here because your employee has reached a productivity goal rather than exhibiting any exceptional behavior. However, in terms of whether the employee would prefer to be publicly awarded or privately thanked? That’s your call.

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Every employee will have different preferences when it comes to recognition. Some desire the spotlight, while some can’t imagine anything worse. Would they prefer a meeting with a more senior manager or an anonymous thank-you card on their desk?

Ultimately, it’s all about deciding which method of recognition would suit that particular employee, taking their wants, needs, and comfort into account at all times. What would inspire them the most? What will motivate them and make them feel appreciated within your company?

These are all important questions to consider.

Why Is Employee Recognition Important?

Now we come to the final piece of the puzzle. Why is employee recognition so important? Doesn’t it seem like a bit of a hassle?

It may well seem like one, especially if you have lots of employees that each require their own method of recognition. What we’re trying to get across here is that it’s a completely worthy investment of your time and money.

Think about it this way. Morale is at an all-time low due to the pandemic. Colleagues can’t see each other except in online meetings, and it’s easy for workers to feel isolated and underappreciated when working from home.

If you make a habit of regularly recognizing and rewarding your staff’s achievements, the news will spread that your company has a great working environment, and you can expect to onboard new employees as a result.

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Here are some proven benefits of habitual employee recognition:

• Stabilized workplace

You’d be surprised how many people leave due to lack of recognition; investing in this process can encourage your employees to stick around for longer.

• Decreased absenteeism

Recognition affirms to the employees that what they’re doing is useful and helpful to the company, which encourages longer workdays and less lateness and sick days.

• Increased productivity

Recognition increases general employee happiness and motivation, which naturally raises productivity.

• Improved sense of unity

Seeing other employees succeed encourages everyone to do the same, which fosters a sense of unity among the staff - it’s a team effort.

• Increased trust between employees and management

If management shows that they appreciate the effort that employees put in, it will show the staff that the higher-ups keep their promises and truly care about their workers.

• Improved customer experience

If employees are all working harder to gain recognition and rewards, customer service and the customer experience will naturally be more seamless and enjoyable. When everyone’s doing their best work, the clientele is the first to enjoy the benefits.

• Decreased employee stress levels

Employee recognition can do wonders for stress relief. Imagine working tirelessly day after day for nothing but a paycheck, without even so much as a “thank you” or a “good job!”. It follows, then, that regular recognition goes a long way in relieving employee stress and increasing their enjoyment of work.

Conclusion

If all this isn’t enough to convince you, try it and see the results for yourself. Bringing this much more human side to a technologically advancing working world reminds us all that businesses are, first and foremost, made of people, and people deserve to be recognized and rewarded.

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Bio:

Marjorie Hajim

Marjorie Hajim is the SEO Manager for EMEA at RingCentral, a leading cloud communications company that provides VoIP and an automatic call distributor system. She develops and executes strategies for short-term and long-term SEO growth. In her spare time, she loves reading books at coffee shops and playing with her dogs.

• VOMO’s platform and app hosts a global volunteer movement and connects organizations and communities 
• Support Staffer of the Year, Paige Dudek, exemplifies the values of VOMO with dedication and proactivity to keep the company running smoothly

About VOMO

VOMO is a web-based platform and app powering a global volunteer movement by providing organizations with the tools needed to discover and initiate projects, connect to community causes, and measure and amplify the impact of volunteering. VOMO, which stands for Volunteer Movement, harnesses the strength of technology to galvanize a generation to change the world for good by streamlining volunteer engagement.

Support Staffer of the Year

Paige Dudek is the backbone and spirit of VOMO. As a company that exists to change the world by serving those who serve others, Paige exemplifies everything it means to be a “VOMie”. VOMO is a small, close-knit team that thrives because of every extra step that Paige takes. She takes care of
hundreds of unseen tasks that keep the company
running smoothly. 

In September 2019, Paige stepped up to lead the sales team. In doing so, she turned what was once a stressful environment into a fun, exciting atmosphere through team-building games. She managed to simultaneously operate daily office functions such as ordering supplies and manning the phone. Her willingness to help and her ability to work cross-functionally are two of the many attributes that earned her the title of Human of the Month, September 2019. 

When the coronavirus shook the world and VOMO needed to shift, Paige didn’t miss a beat. VOMO relaunched the Be A Neighbor campaign, and Paige was at the helm to ensure it functioned without a hitch. She spent her personal time mastering the platform overnight as she sourced and posted various serving opportunities to the campaign page. In addition, she learned the ins and outs of WordPress, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Canva in the span of one week to seamlessly manage the national campaign. She also took on managing all social media for the campaign while still completing her regular work, and somehow never letting the snack box run empty. 

A woman who wears many hats, Paige’s unending dedication to VOMO is evident through her passion for everything that she does. 

VOMO won the Gold Stevie Award for Support Categories - Support Staffer of the Year in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Microbiological Testing & Consulting is a Chicago-based testing lab registered by the FDA
• Small lab size allows MTC to uniquely meet their clients’ needs
• With the whole world shopping for hand sanitizer during the pandemic, MTC’s clients were under significant pressure to deliver, and Microbiological Testing & Consulting helped make it possible

About Microbiological Testing & Consulting

Microbiological Testing & Consulting is an FDA-registered microbiological testing lab in Chicago, Illinois. MTC provides state-of-the-art microbial, sterility, preservation, and product development testing for clients in the personal care industry, a critical component in the development of safe and effective consumer products. 

What sets Microbiological Testing & Consulting apart is its size. MTC is a small lab, which allows them to be nimble in their ability to satisfy clients’ needs. With state-of-the-art equipment, MTC offers clients the testing services they expect from a large organization but delivers it with the personalization of a boutique lab. Clients appreciate that they can speak directly with lab personnel and discuss specific issues and timeframes. They enjoy rapid turnaround and MTC’s ability to re-prioritize as necessary to keep production lines running smoothly, something that larger competitors cannot offer. 

MTC’s COVID-19 Response

When the pandemic struck the nation, Microbiological Testing & Consulting became an essential business. Due to the CDC’s recommendations surrounding hand hygiene as a means to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, hand sanitizers were in high demand and in short supply, so the FDA authorized local production and published specifications for efficacy against COVID-19. MTC’s clients quickly switched their product lines from personal care products to hand sanitizers, and with the coronavirus spreading quickly, there was an intense pressure to provide the market with products that would protect consumers and contain the spread of the virus. 

Because hand sanitizers and other OTC products cannot be released to the consumer market without FDA-approved microbial testing, MTC’s lab services became critically important, and a quick turnaround was essential. MTC worked around the clock, accepting samples from across the region and extending hours to accommodate critical testing. Staff performed Kill Time studies to ensure that the alcohol-based sanitizers were effective, and if not, they consulted with their clients to reformulate their products to perform within CDC and FDA specifications. MTC troubleshot their clients’ formulations, adjusting where necessary to align tolerances or increase effectiveness. They tested the purity of each sample to ensure there were no bacteria present, and if necessary, they identified the pathogens and devised a production plan to eliminate them. 

With the whole world shopping for hand sanitizer, MTC’s clients were under significant pressure to deliver, and Microbiological Testing & Consulting helped make it possible. 

Microbiological Testing & Consulting won a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Company of the Year - Health Products & Services - Small in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• BSI Solutions fosters novel thinking and creates custom solutions designed to meet complex organizational challenges
• The Novel Education in Virtual Reality (NEVR) platform is a fully immersive virtual learning platform that allows teachers and students to enter the classroom from anywhere. 
• VR Technology is a natural learning solution for future generations, and BSI Solutions is ready to innovate for the future  

About BSI Solutions

BSI Solutions provides innovative and transformative development services to global corporate and government partners. The company fosters novel thinking to create customized, state-of-the-art solutions designed to meet the most complex organizational challenges. The core expertise is artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain technology, XR technology, staffing and program management.

BSI Solutions was founded in May of 2019 by retired US Army veteran Dr. Kendrick Carroll. The company started with very humble beginnings with just one client and one office, and has since grown to over 20 business partnerships, over 60 employees, and operations nationally and globally. Dr. Carroll has fostered an undeniable passion within the company for empowering youth for future growth. Under his leadership, BSI Solutions has created the first 100% student-focused program to provide career-bound students with full-time career opportunities upon graduation. 

Novel Education in Virtual Reality (NEVR)

As schools across the nation navigated the new distance learning challenges created by the pandemic, innovative technologies were critical in ensuring that children’s educational experience is protected and enhanced. As an innovative solution to this growing issue, BSI Solutions created the Novel Education in Virtual Reality (NEVR) platform. This interactive, fully immersive platform uses the power of virtual reality for education and training and provides students and teachers with stand-alone VR headsets that enable them to enter the classroom from anywhere. 

NEVR offers increased levels of embodied learning and engagement that allow students to interact with teachers in real-time, as well as interact with, manipulate, and build objects and virtually touch items they may not have access to in their own classrooms. 

Participating educational institutions first identify which classes would be best suited for a virtual offering for lectures. Each instructor then works with a BSI Solutions software developer to identify how they would prefer for their classes to look and function within virtual reality. Students and instructors are able to design and create their own avatars to use while in the virtual environment. Unique experiences such as virtual field trips are also created.

VR Technology is a natural learning solution for future generations. It connects the innate learning language of students with the ability to comprehend the presented lesson plan. Technology continues to be the ultimate culture neutralizer, and with the unknown waiting around every corner, virtual reality platforms are the future. 

BSI Solutions won a Bronze Stevie Award for COVID-19 Response Categories - Most Valuable Technical Innovation in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Taylor Medical Center in Jackson, TN serves mostly uninsured or underinsured patients in the community
• Dr. Mechelle Taylor Moragne provided unwavering service to the community during the pandemic, including creating a free testing center, providing free masks, and distributing free vaccinations

About Taylor Medical Center 

Taylor Medical Center is a primary care facility that focuses on preventive health and chronic care management. Dr. Mechelle Taylor Moragne opened the Center in 2017 with the goal of being an advocate for patients and providing exceptional medical care. She was the first medical director of a clinic that served mostly underinsured and uninsured patients, who often carried a high burden of chronic conditions. Her style of care relies on the input of the patient, ensuring that they feel heard and seen. Dr. Taylor Moragne believes that each patient that enters her office deserves the best care possible regardless of socioeconomic status. Her motto is “Tailor your well-being”, and that's exactly how she works with patients.

Dr. Mechelle Taylor Moragne of Taylor Medical Center was nominated for the Frontline Medical Hero of the Year Award for her untiring service to the Jackson, TN community during the COVID-19 pandemic. While most businesses closed doors and providers worked from home, Dr. Taylor Moragne and the staff at Taylor Medical Center kept the doors open to the patients of Jackson. 

Many patients found themselves without access to medical care and were unsure where to turn for help. Because most of these patients in this region of West TN are uninsured or underinsured, they have the highest burden of chronic health conditions, making them even more vulnerable to the effects of the coronavirus. 

These patients needed to have their illnesses managed, medications refilled, and guidance delivered about decreasing their risk and exposure during the pandemic. Dr. Taylor Moragne met and provided them with a COVID testing center at no cost. When LabCorp (the facility used to process the test) ran out of solution, swabs, and collection tubes, Dr. Taylor Moragne purchased these items to assure testing. She also became a community partner with the local Health Department to provide free masks to the Jackson community. Today, the Taylor Medical Center is providing free vaccinations to uninsured individuals in the Jackson, TN community, and is doing its part to get the vaccines into arms to beat the COVID pandemic. 

Taylor Medical Center won two Silver Stevie Awards: for COVID-19 Response Categories - Frontline Medical Hero of the Year, and for Company / Organization Categories - Minority-Owned Business of the Year in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

The American Business Awards® are the premier business awards program in the U.S.A.  All organizations - public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small - may submit nominations. The 2021 winners were celebrated during a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, June 30.

The 2021 American Business Awards winners accepted their trophies and medals from home in lieu of an in-person awards gala. Each winning organization that participated was honored during a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, June 30. The ceremony live stream was viewed by over 1,000 individuals comprised of winners, friends, and family.

Winners accepted their awards by filming 30-second acceptance speeches from their home offices, corporate settings, and even while holding their prized Stevie trophies outdoors. In addition to pre-recorded acceptance speeches, the ceremony featured videos about the winning organizations, messages from Stevie Awards judges and sponsors, and surprise celebrity guests. This year's surprise guests included actor and director of The Office, Brian Baumgartner, celebrity magician Penn Jillette, and Paula Abdul.

"Congratulations to all of you Stevie Awards winners on your business achievements," Baumgartner said. " I know this last year has been tough, so if you won an award, you really did something right!...But, onwards and upwards. Let's look to the rest of 2021 and make it Twenty-twenty-awesome."

A complete list of The 19th annual American Business Awards winners by category can be found here. The winners are determined by the average scores of more than 250 professionals worldwide in a three-month judging process. Some of the winning organizations that participated in the virtual awards ceremony included:

• AARP, Washington, DC
• American Dental Association, Chicago, IL
• Church's Chicken, Atlanta, GA
• Cyara, Redwood City, CA
• Delta Dental of Kansas, Wichita, KS
• Diamond Resorts®, Las Vegas, NV
• Estée Lauder Companies, New York, NY
• Fidelity Investments, Jersey City, NJ
• GAVS Technologies N.A., Inc., NJ
• Grant Thornton LLP, Chicago, IL
• Hilton Grand Vacations, Orlando, FL
• Hilton Supply Management, McLean, VA
• IBM, Armonk, New York, NY
• Marvel Marketers, LLC, San Mateo, CA
• Masks4Missions, Shelburne, VT
• Medidata Solutions, a Dassault Systemes Company, New York, NY
• Nature's Sunshine, Lehi, UT
• The Salvation Army, New York, NY
• Tinuiti, New York City, NY
• VUMI Group, Dallas, TX
• …and many more

A favorite part of the virtual ceremony platform was our "virtual red carpet," which transformed the background of attendee photos into the 2021 American Business Awards step and repeat backdrop. View the red carpet photo gallery. 

The ceremony replay, individual acceptance speeches, and red carpet interviews are available to watch on YouTube and below.

 

Of the winning organizations that participated in the June 30 virtual awards, two were esteemed Grand Stevie Awards Winners; The Salvation Army and Tinuiti. 

Highest-rated COVID-19 Response Category Nomination: The Salvation Army’s (New York, NY) nomination of Seth Ditmer, their Deputy Director of Operations - Emergency Services, won Gold for Delivery Hero of the Year, for his oversight of the delivery of pantry boxes to home-bound seniors, people with compromised immune systems, and coordinated mass grocery deliveries to soup kitchens at The Salvation Army’s 38 community centers in the New York City area. With an average score from the judges of 9.5/10, the nomination wins a Grand Stevie Award as the highest rated of all those in the competition’s COVID-19 Response categories.

Most Honored Marketing Agency: Tinuiti, the New York-based performance marketing firm, wins for 26.5 award points earned for Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie wins in a variety of marketing and technology categories.

To close out the 2.5-hour virtual awards show, the President of the Stevie Awards, Maggie Gallagher Miller, remarked on the creativity from this year's winners and her anticipation of celebrating the 2022 American Business Awards in person in New York City. "Thank you again for being here today to celebrate your many accomplishments over the past year, she said. "It was great to hear so much creativity and positivity from the Stevie Awards community. Have a great rest of your day and we hope to see you in person next June."

Sponsors and supporters of The 19th annual American Business Awards are Microsoft, Medidata, VideoAmp, Inc., and HCL Technologies.

Interested in entering The 2022 (20th Annual) American Business Awards? Entries will open this coming October.

• CoreStack is at the heart of digital transformation
• CoreStack Enterprise Cloud Governance enables organizations to rapidly achieve continuous and autonomous cloud governance by applying a unique governance model 

About CoreStack 

CoreStack is an AI-powered multi-cloud governance solution that empowers enterprises to rapidly achieve Continuous and Autonomous Cloud Governance at Scale. CoreStack was recognized as IDC Innovator in Cloud Management Solutions and in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms in 2020. CoreStack is a Microsoft Azure Gold Partner and Amazon AWS Advanced Competency Technology Partner.

CoreStack Enterprise Cloud Governance is a product offering by CoreStack where innovation is continually underway. This was released for use by customers in 2020 and has been reviewed by Gartner, IDC, etc. since early 2020. The latest innovation in the product is AI-powered backing.

The cloud lies at the heart of digital transformation. However, it is impossible to unleash the real benefits of the cloud without governance. Organizations struggle with operational complexities, security and regulatory compliance, and unabated cloud costs. CoreStack Enterprise Cloud Governance helps organizations overcome these challenges with deeper cloud visibility, governance guardrails, and automatic remediation.  CoreStack enables organizations to realize outcomes such as 40% decrease in cloud costs and 50% increase in operational efficiencies by governing operations, security, cost, access, and resources. CoreStack assures 100% compliance with standards such as ISO, FedRAMP, NIST, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, AWS CIS, and Well Architected Framework (WAF).

CoreStack Enterprise Cloud Governance (ECG) enables organizations to rapidly achieve continuous and autonomous cloud governance by applying a unique governance model - OSCAR that uses deep AI/ML, declarative definitions, and a patented cloud service-chaining technology to help achieve these outcomes:

Run Lean and Efficient Cloud Operations 

Leverage automation and proactive governance to achieve high cloud availability and optimal performance. Automate monitoring and alerts, activity tracking, back-up, restore, and patch management.

Build a Strong Defense against Cloud Security Threats

Set up security governance guardrails. Identify the threats and assess the vulnerabilities continuously. Obtain a real-time cloud security posture and insights into security trends by region, resource, type, and age.

Optimize Cloud Costs

Gain deeper visibility into cloud-spend by account, category, type, tag, region, product category, and resource group. Enable budget controls and charge-back mechanism. Identify the unoptimized cloud resources and configurations.

Govern Access based on Principle of Least-Privilege

Gain centralized visibility of cloud accounts and their access by user, cloud service, policies, and roles. Learn how the access is utilized and identify violations.

Ensure Resource Consistency across Cloud Footprint

Define, enforce, and track the resource naming and tagging standards, locks, and usage by regions. Consistency discipline ensures that the resources are deployed, discovered, and managed effectively at scale.

Measure the Cloud Governance Index

Continuously measure the overall cloud governance index and for each pillar – Operations, Security, Cost, Access, and Resource. Benchmark it against the industry best practices. Implement the recommended practices and witness your governance index improving.

CoreStack won the Gold Stevie Award for New Product & Service Categories - Business Technology - Cloud Infrastructure in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards®? Request the entry kit.