Zii is the world’s first FinTech platform focused on enabling better business travel. Specifically designed for corporate travel leaders, by corporate travel leaders, Zii’s innovative, unique functionality and user experience can’t be seen anywhere else in the marketplace. The platform is specifically designed to complement TMC functionality, enabling easy implementation and seamless integration into any travel program.

The proprietary scoring mechanism uses social motivation and immediate feedback to show the direct implications of non-compliant travel behavior and influence employee travel decisions to align with travel policy. Zii’s real-time data & analytics capabilities get to the root causes of overspending at both macro and microeconomic levels, significantly reducing travel spending.

Companies are wasting millions of dollars each year on unnecessary travel expenses. According to a recent report by Mastercard, Travel, and Expense (T&E) costs are usually an organization’s second-highest indirect expense, behind labor. The report also revealed that 80% of the organizations surveyed lacked real visibility into their T&E spending. With no insight into how travel spending is being managed, many companies are leaving money on the table.

With corporate travel set to rise 25-50% as the pandemic decreases, this means another $1.2 trillion will be wasted through 2025.

That’s where Zii comes in:

The solution is Zii. Zii works with three main pillars to identify and address areas of non-compliance and overspend within the organization.

Financial Optimization

By identifying and addressing specific areas of unnecessary spending, organizations will be able to save millions of dollars annually.

Distribution of Responsibility

Travel managers waste approximately 500 hours annually in faulty T&E management protocols, costing companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted wages. By improving productivity and reducing bottlenecks, you can amplify cost savings across multiple departments.

Automation & Gamification

It’s time to bring T&E management into the 21st century. Using data analysis to automate cost savings and applying gamification techniques to encourage and maintain usage, companies can consistently save millions year over year.

From the moment a trip is booked to when the expense report is submitted, Zii makes T&E spending and reporting automated and compliant. Using gamification tools to modify behavior and improve employee engagement, Zii turns your traveling workforce into independently-managed cost-savers. With its easy-to-use interface and intuitive booking technology, Zii revolutionizes travel across all levels of your organization.

Zii is designed to enable information delivery that is Personalized, Relevant, and Timely:

Personalized – Advanced data analysis achieves personalized information for travelers and administrators, enhancing the user experience across all levels and verticals of the organization.

Relevant & Timely –Sorting through information to try and understand what is critical and what isn’t costs you valuable time and money, factors that are essential when it comes to travel. Zii does this for you, prioritizing relevant information and delivering it when and where you need it. 

Zii empowers travelers to take control of their entire trip life cycle. Designed specifically to be both comprehensive and user-friendly, Zii’s online booking tool makes travel arrangements a simple task, accomplished in minutes.

Many competing enterprise travel booking tools require a certain level of training in order to effectively use their system. Zii’s interface is straightforward - users at any level of technical ability can quickly learn how to manage their trips from start to finish. With 99% uptime, users enjoy uninterrupted use of the application in any location, at any time.

Since entering The International Business Awards in 2021, Zii Travel Technologies has been hard at work developing a sustainability solution product that will revolutionize the corporate travel industry when it comes to bridging the gap between corporate travel and sustainability.  Zii hopes to bring to market a solution that will: Inform, Educate and make it easy to measure and report overall progress and achievements tailored to each organization’s goals and objectives.

Interested in The 2022 International Business Awards?

The Stevie Awards are now accepting nominations for The 19th Annual International Business Awards®, the world's premier business awards competition, which attracts nominations from organizations in more than 60 nations and territories each year.

All individuals and organizations worldwide - public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small - may submit nominations to The International Business Awards. The early-bird entry deadline, with reduced entry fees, is 6 April. The final entry deadline is 11 May, but late entries will be accepted through 15 June with payment of a late fee. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

Juries featuring more than 150 executives around the world will determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners. Winners will be announced on 15 August and celebrated at a gala banquet in Europe in October.

The International Business Awards recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace. Categories include:

• Management Awards 
• COVID-19 Response 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, App, Event, Video and other media awards
• Social Media Awards
• Thought Leadership Awards

There are many new and revised features of The International Business Awards for 2022:

• Nine new event awards categories, ten new innovation in social media categories, three thought leadership categories, three video categories, three mobile site & app categories, two new product categories, and categories for Achievement in Diversity & Inclusion and Influencer Marketing Campaign of the Year
  
  
• Nominations that won in the 2021 IBAs may be resubmitted for consideration in the 2022 IBAs.  If they have been updated with recent achievements, they may be submitted to the same categories in which they won.  If they have not been updated, they must be submitted to categories different from those in which they won.
  
  
• In many of the category groups and categories, you may now submit a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, illustrating the nominee's achievements, instead of the traditional Stevie Awards written essay.

Stevie Award winners in the 2021 IBAs included Ayala Land (Philippines), Cvent (USA), Ernst & Young Global Limited (UK), Etihad Airways Group (UAE), IBM (USA), Halkbank (Turkey), HP Inc. (USA), Google (USA), Nestle India (India), PJ Lhuillier, Inc (Philippines), Rufus & Coco (Australia), Philip Morris International (Switzerland), Polish Railway Lines (Poland), SAP SE (Germany), and many more.

ASCIRA COO Belynda Lee was named the winner of a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Woman of the Year category in The 18th Annual International Business Awards®. 

Belynda is a dynamic corporate executive with over three decades of experience in building strong international industry relationships with key corporate vendors and sales teams. She has an excellent reputation with high-profile, high-volume business associates.  She has been involved in the building of billion-dollar companies like Usana Health Sciences, Elizabeth Arden, Organo Gold to name a few.

In the past two years, Belynda bravely moved across the world to Dubai UAE to set up a brand new startup ASCIRA Global. It is a digital platform offering personal and business development in a subscription-based model.  Having launched in March 2020, right at the onset of the COVID 19 outbreak, the company has recorded numerous accomplishments, including surpassing 10,000 new members worldwide in less than a year.

More on Belynda's Experience

Belynda brings international business acumen and her unique ability to perform as a cross-functional strategist to the team. Born in Singapore and formally educated with a Master of Business Administration, Belynda's multilingual background helps her facilitate multi-channel distribution strategies that benefit both corporate and sales teams globally. Her ability to work directly with the sales field to develop winning strategies has resulted in many individuals achieving success, both professionally and personally. 

As a public figure and inspirational speaker, Belynda has moved crowds globally. With her personable character and the ability to resonate with individuals from all walks of life, Belynda has garnered a large following of fans around the world. She also serves as a mentor and coach for numerous young professionals learning the corporate system, thriving to excel in their careers. Her other interests involve restoring unloved homes, and she has left her mark in multiple properties in one of the most aggressive real estate markets in Vancouver.

Belynda penned her first autobiographical book, "Five-Inch Heels - When Women Step Into Power and Success," in 2014. The book delves into how one person can realize their worth and power to alter the course of life. In it, she teaches how effective servant leadership can be compassionate and inspiring. "Five-Inch Heels" went on to become a bestseller in North America. Influenced by her struggle, Belynda is also passionate about empowering other women. Whenever possible, she speaks on different platforms to share her story of adversity and conquers and how the Power of Choice-Change-Mind can alter anyone's destiny.

Belynda is exceptionally passionate about empowering women. In 2008, Belynda started the Canadian Women in a Business tour to highlight the success of female entrepreneurs. Her ongoing mission is to create personal and professional examples for others to follow while making a global impact on females today and in the future. 

In 2012 she presented an Outstanding Leadership Award from Global Women Summit in Vancouver, Canada, for creating a platform to recognize successful female entrepreneurs. 

In 2013, at the 13th Annual International Leadership and Financial Summit, Dr. Deavra Daughtry, CEO of Texas Women's Empowerment Foundation (TWEF), presented Belynda with an International Leadership Award for her leadership role as a vice president and her contribution to society as an inspirational speaker at various empowering platforms. 

In 2014, she was awarded "Leader of the Year" at the 10th Annual Women of Worth Conference. In the same year, she was also awarded the "Top Chinese Women of Canada" award from United Global Chinese Women Association in Canada. 

In 2021, she was presented "Champion in Global Women Empowerment" by Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher Bint Khalifa Al Khalifa in Dubai, UAE.

Interested in The 2022 International Business Awards®?

Umbrella IT (UIT) is a Stevie Award-winning company providing web and mobile development and IT consulting services focusing on finance, retail, and media. UIT has successfully completed more than 220 international projects for clients including Variety, Rolling Stone, Disney, Hamleys, 9GAG, IKEA, METRO AG, BCS bank and others. In April 2021, MirrorMe Web, developed by UIT for Mary Kay, became the winner at the Russian Corporate Media Competition in the category "B2B. Industry media/Web media". The other UIT’s client is BCS bank, whose mobile app was included in the TOP 11 best banking applications according to analytical agency Markswebb. As a trusted partner UIT takes responsibility for negotiations with other contractors on behalf of METRO, covering up to 50% of requests.

Based on the 11 years of experience in the global market they formed fourteen client-focused services involving flexible team models depending on the nature of the job and the scope to be covered. Their key goal is to create value for the clients’ end customers using our knowledge of segment-specific pains and the best industry practices.

Though founded in Taganrog, UIT has extended its presence to Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and New York

The Umbrella IT team is proud of their results which stemmed from well-coordinated efforts from each employee. 

• Since 2005 the IAOP has been publishing its annual listing Global Outsourcing 100. The listing includes Umbrella IT together with such industry leaders as IBM, Canon, Accenture, CBRE, Deloitte.
• Since 1954 iF Product Design Award has been organizing one of the world's most valued design competitions. Within 67 years, only 38 Russian design projects including Umbrella IT’s received iF Design Awards quality mark.
• Last year Umbrella IT became the Stevie Awards winner. This time they are recognized with a Gold, Silver, and 2 Bronze Stevie Awards for Best Marketing App; Best User Experience; IT Team of the Year, and Executive of the Year.
• In Clutch’s Global b2b Top 1000 Service Providers for 2020 list, UIT climbed up 317 positions at once and rose from the 400th place to the 83rd. Only the top 1% of the companies listed on the Clutch site are listed in this rating. For three consecutive years, Umbrella IT has been ranked among the best B2B service providers with improved results. 
• The BIG Innovation Awards recognize the organizations, innovative developments, and solutions that bring new ideas to life creating value not for the clients only, but for the entire humanity. UIT joined the winners along with 52 other companies, 137 products, and 7 individual winners who have achieved significant results in their industries.
• MobileAppDaily’s 40 under 40 report highlights the young innovators in the sphere of mobile development. The 2020’s list marked UIT CEO Mikhail Menshinskiy’s ability and desire to use technology for the benefit of humanity

UIT’s team of professionals numbers more than 250 specialists. In March 2021 they opened the first representative office in New York. UIT released its own products: RomDo, AtTrack, and UnSpot. 

Based on the 10 years' experience in the global market, one of the 14 new client-focused services is “Technical Debt Reduction by 80% in One Month Without Stopping Project”. This service was developed during the Customer Development interviews, conducted by the UIT experts.

During 2020 and 2021 Umbrella IT achieved significant results and was recognized by the global professional community. Umbrella IT has been acknowledged by numerous ratings and awards: The Global Outsourcing (IAOP), Big Innovation Awards, Clutch (UIT is the first the list b2b-providers in Russia and 83rd among the list Global 1000). In total,
they won 75+ various international awards. 

UIT won multiple Stevie Awards in The 2021 International Business Awards. 

Interested in entering The 2022 International Business Awards?

Ground Labs’ Exceptional Customer Service

Ground Labs is a leading provider of data discovery solutions, enabling organizations worldwide to find, secure, and remediate all of their data across multiple types and locations — whether it’s stored on-premise or in the cloud. Working with well-known global brands including Dufry, Vodafone, Canadian Tire, McDonald’s, 1-800-Flowers, and Thales, the company remains focused on developing technology to meet the increasing challenges of data management and regulatory compliance. 

This commitment is demonstrated through Ground Labs’ flagship products, Enterprise Recon and Card Recon, as well as the company’s ability to provide assistance and resources during a time when organizations need it most, which was at the height of the global pandemic in 2020. In response to COVID-19, Ground Labs released Enterprise Recon NOW, a complimentary limited edition of the company’s award-winning Enterprise Recon solution, allowing organizations to discover, remediate and monitor over 300 data types across their remote workforce, with full customer support included.

Ground Labs provides effective and educational support to all of its users, using a team of customer service professionals with engineering backgrounds to provide such service. Each team member has over a decade of experience in customer-facing roles and together, they hold several industry certifications, including AWS, CCNA, CompTIA, ITIL, LPIC, and MCSA. 

The roll-out of the complimentary Enterprise Recon NOW offering, as well as the uptick in the need for data discovery solutions as companies pivoted towards remote business models, created increased volumes for Ground Labs’ customer service department -- but the team met customer needs at a record speed, during a critical moment in time for all businesses.

Serving Customers Through COVID-19

In April 2020, Stevie-winner Ground Labs launched its complimentary Enterprise Recon NOW offering. This resource, paired with the natural uptick in data discovery queries as companies pivoted towards remote business models, created increased volumes for Ground Labs’ customer service department. Overall, Ground Labs’ customer service department handled 3,418 customer support cases, and over 99% of customer feedback ratings have been rated as positive. 

Throughout 2020, Ground Labs’ customer service department handled 3,418 customer support cases, and over 99% of customer feedback ratings have been rated as positive. In Q1 2021, following a full year of offering such astounding service, Ground Labs’ customer service satisfaction score was at a perfect 100%, meaning all customer needs were met in a timely, effective, and efficient manner.

Ground Labs understands the importance of fast, helpful email responses in replies to customer queries. As a result, throughout 2020, the team achieved an average first reply time of 43 minutes for inbound email and web inquiries during business hours -- an improvement of 11 minutes compared to 2019. 

Additionally, realizing the need for expanded support in key regions, Ground Labs also enhanced customer service for the Middle East in 2020. Understanding that this region’s work week runs from Sunday to Thursday, Ground Labs added an additional shift to offer 24x5 support in the Middle East. This has been well received by Ground Labs customers and allows the company to provide elite levels of support globally. 

With customer service departments in Singapore, Dublin, and Austin, Texas, Ground Labs is able to provide 24x5 support across the globe with a “follow-the-sun” service model that streamlines workflow and allows issues to be resolved from anywhere in the world. This model has proven successful across the globe and has allowed the Ground Labs customer service department to reach the pinnacle of success in 100% customer satisfaction.

Examples of recent customer feedback include:

"Amazing! What an astounding product you have here...backed up with brilliant support from the Ground Labs team.” -- Con Panso, Representative, TEG Live

“Ground Labs' support is the best group I interface with. Ground Labs is so much better than the large firms that I deal with, like IBM. By far the best support I have ever dealt with.” -- Megan Nilsen, Lead Cyber Security Analyst, Caesars Entertainment

Ground Labs won the Gold Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year in The 2021 International Business Awards. 

Interested in The 2022 International Business Awards?

Optoro, a leader in returns technology, partnered with eBay to connect retailers with one of the largest marketplaces in the world to give products a second home through its BULQ® on eBay integration. BULQ on eBay offers customer returns and excess merchandise from top retailers to the eBay seller community, providing sellers with high-quality inventory to support their businesses and keeping these products out of landfills. 

Retailers are facing a surge of returned and excess inventory due to the steady rise of eCommerce. In tandem, customers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of retail and are making more discerning purchase decisions as a result. 

This is where secondary markets, like BULQ on eBay, provide major value. As eBay’s exclusive wholesale partner, Optoro leverages its relationships with leading retailers and independent sellers to source returned goods and excess inventory, and automatically relist those products on eBay stores.

Since June, eCommerce adoption has only continued to soar, further increasing the demand for secondary markets. BULQ on eBay has helped address this demand while ensuring that retailers have a sustainable outlet for excess inventory. The partnership has also drastically improved resale processes for gig economy workers utilizing BULQ on eBay. Today, the partnership has helped these resellers save up to 50% of their listing time using eBay’s first-of-its-kind relisting solution that provides inventory from big-name retailers like Target.

As categories like rental, refurbishment, and resale continue to grow – and consumers and businesses seek to improve their environmental impact – secondary markets have become a massive opportunity to unlock growth, keep products in circulation longer, and reduce the amount of product that goes to landfill. But, getting products to their next best home is not easy, especially at scale. Retailers struggle with how to resell products and avoid traditional liquidation channels, while resellers struggle with how to find profitable inventory in a repeatable and efficient way.

With BULQ on eBay, retailers keep products in the hands of happy customers, independent sellers have the opportunity to prioritize their families and other important needs, and the environment sees less impact.

Market Performance:

Top Rated: One of eBay's most reputable sellers. Consistently delivers outstanding customer service. 98.6% positive feedback over the last 12 months. 5-star reviews in all four categories on eBay.

Top Customers: Returns from retailers like Target are now being bulk-sold on eBay, where smaller sellers can buy them up and resell them individually (Fast Company).

Small Business Impact: Independent sellers love the product’s inventory and efficiency for helping them streamline their buying process and scale their small businesses. “It’s mind-blowing. I mean, it really changes everything.” – Gina P., BULQ on eBay seller.

Critical Reception:

“To help move all that excess merchandise, Optoro is partnering with eBay, which is no stranger to helping America sell odds and ends online. The deal isn’t designed to let consumers buy individual returned and unsold items directly from stores. Instead, the deal lets individuals and small businesses buy boxes of unsold merchandise from stores through eBay and Bulq, a division of Optoro that handles online bulk liquidation sale, then quickly turn around and relist those items individually on eBay.” – Fast Company

“Together, eBay and Optoro enable retailers to sell returned and excess inventory seamlessly on eBay, and in turn provide an influx of high-demand wholesale inventory for eBay sellers. The two companies leveraged their respective proprietary technologies to make sourcing and reselling on eBay faster and more seamless for sellers, thus accelerating the pace of resale.” – Tamebay

“By transforming sellers’ experience of resale, BULQ is poised to help small businesses grow and thrive.” – Small Business Trends

Customer Satisfaction:

"The product is gaining immediate traction with retailers."

“Returns from retailers like Target are now being bulk-sold on eBay, where smaller sellers can buy them up and resell them individually.” – Fast Company

What sellers are saying:

“The manifests being on eBay are glorious. They just showed the pictures and that made it really nice instead of having to click around.” – Catherine S., BULQ on eBay seller

“The generate drafts feature is AWESOME!” – Sarah L., BULQ on eBay seller

Optoro won the Gold Stevie Award for Best New Product or Service, Business-to-Business Services for their BULQ product in The 2021 International Business Awards. 

Interested in The 2022 International Business Awards?

SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, they help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP® system.

SAP’s machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. They simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Their end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences, a Gold Stevie-winning product, is a productive business network in the pharmaceutical industry that facilitates the messaging of traceability and serial number data across the pharmaceutical supply chain. It empowers the customer to connect ONCE and share data with all across the connected network.

The most recent addition to SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences covers regulatory collaboration between participants of the supply chain of prescription medicine.

The option for regulatory collaboration provides onboarding, integration, and messaging capabilities to support various legislations, including the need to onboard a high number of business partners to exchange fully standardized messages in a regulatory context. The service provides:

• Invitation Management from customers to business partners
• Self-onboarding of invited business partners
• Transmission of standardized notifications in legislation-specific formats using the generic reporting framework between SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences and SAP Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals
• Receiving standardized regulatory notifications from Business Partners

The first use case for this option for regulatory collaboration is the Brazilian market. This is planned as a basis for the U.S. market to support the requirements of the DSCSA 2023.

Today the seven largest pharmaceutical companies globally, 13 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, and two of the three largest U.S. pharmaceutical wholesalers are using SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences to connect to their ecosystem to verify saleable returns.

RSM: SAP Rural Sourcing Management

This technology has been built on years of experience supporting farmers in rural Africa. SAP uses existing products, namely SAP Rural Sourcing Management, a Silver Stevie Award-winning cloud-based solution connecting farmers with the agricultural value chain, and the SAP Ariba Network, the world’s largest business-to-business network, which has been adapted to the problem of the plastic value chain.

Due to rapid population growth and growing industrialization, many regions in Africa and South-East Asia suffer from an insufficient solid waste management system. This is underscored by irregular collection, inadequate operational funding, and a reliance on the informal sector who typically manages over 40% of waste collection by volume. Often the informal collectors of waste are exploited or have poor working conditions. Sometimes waste is dumped in landfills or rivers and oceans and very little is recycled. Approximately 13 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the ocean annually, the equivalent of one garbage truckload every minute. However, CPG companies want to buy more recycled plastic to meet their commitments to recycled content, but cannot get enough feedstock.

SAP’s product offers the technology to support waste collector communities and the local recycling companies to connect this eco-system to a global marketplace for recycled plastics and other materials. They connect all of the actors in the plastic waste value chain to potential buyers. This helps to ensure that pickers are paid better, have access to safety equipment and training, and are not exploited. By tracking the material flows they can predict volumes for recycling, encouraging more investment in recycling, and by connecting to eager buyers, they are reducing the amount that goes to landfills.

The technology has been built on years of experience supporting farmers in rural Africa to grow more crops. SAP uses existing products, namely SAP Rural Sourcing Management and the SAP Ariba Network - the world’s largest business-to-business network, which has been adapted to the problem of the plastics value chain.

They monitor all attributes of the plastics collected at all points in the value chain, from collectors, to reprocessing, as well as other important metrics to support the communities, such as participation rate, recycling rates, gender/diversity, well-being, welfare, training participation, and volume and prices of different materials.

This system benefits the ecosystem overall, waste collectors, recyclers, local cities, and more.

SAP SE won the Gold Stevie Award for Best New Product or Service - Business-to-Business Products for SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Science and the Silver Stevie for SAP Plastic Collector Solution using SAP Rural Sourcing Management in The 2021 International Business Awards.

Interested in entering The 2022 International Business Awards?

Did you know that 80% of all accidents occur when you take your eyes off the road for three seconds or less? At highway speeds, a look away can have you traveling half a football field blind. 

Stevie Award winner Drop Stop is the Original and Patented Vehicle Seat Gap Filler and one of ABC’s Shark Tank's most successful and popular selling products in the show's history! Shark Tank investor Lori Greiner offered Drop Stop a deal when its co-founders appeared on Shark Tank in 2013. Since then, Drop Stop has been in retailers across the country and in millions of vehicles, helping to keep people safer on the roads.

Drop Stop prevents items (cell phones, french fries, etc.) from being dropped into that annoying, yet ever so dangerous gap between the seat and center console in your vehicle.

Drop Stop's automotive safety device was created to 'Stop the Drop' and keep your eyes on the road, not in your gap.

Drop Stop's mission is to save lives and put an end to the leading killer on the roads, distracted driving. Due to the product's success, Drop Stop has been able to protect millions of lives across the United States with more than 5 million Drop Stops installed in vehicles and more than $50 million in sales.

Drop Stop has been featured on 11 episodes of Shark Tank, Good Morning America, CNBC, Oprah.com, Howard Stern, The View, The Queen Latifah Show, and more.

As Drop Stop continues to strive to save lives, they have been able to outfit the entire Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) fleet of more than 3,500 police cruisers with Drop Stops.

In one year after those LAPD vehicles had traveled over 42,000,000 miles with Drop Stops installed, their collision rate with injuries to Officers dropped by 43% and Drop Stop was the only equipment change.

Driver distraction is the number one cause of death for officers on duty; being able to significantly reduce these accidents due to Drop Stop's auto safety device truly ensures that Drop Stop is achieving its mission to save lives by reducing distracted driving.

More of Drop Stop's milestones in 2021 include: 

- Sold over 5 million Drop Stops with over $50 million in sales.
- Drop Stops have become one of the top-selling and most popular products in ABC’s Shark Tank’s show’s history.
- Drop Stops are now sold nationwide in Walmart, The Container Store, soon-to-be Target, thousands of car washes and dealerships, hundreds of grocery and convenience stores, and many more outlets.
- Achieved over 30,000 Amazon reviews with a rating of 4.6+ stars.
- Completed over 200 sold-out appearances on QVC.

Drop Stop won the Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year - Automotive & Transport Equipment in The 2021 International Business Awards®.

Interested in Entering the 2022 International Business Awards?

Acrolinx is AI-powered software that improves the quality and effectiveness of enterprise content. It helps some of the world's most valuable brands meet complex content challenges at an immense scale — across writers, languages, and cultures. Acrolinx helps deliver a unified content experience across all digital touchpoints, avoiding editorial bottlenecks, budget overruns, and compliance risks. 

The Stevie-Winning Marketing Team

Acrolinx’s Stevie Award-winning marketing department is a small, global team, with a track record of success. Like many other companies, the pandemic presented new challenges and, for the first time in 2020, the marketing team worked entirely remotely. Despite having a lean budget, which was further reduced because of the pandemic, this team fueled Acrolinx’s record growth in 2020, which tripled in just one year.

With the perfect mix of talent and passion, this committed team has big goals when it comes to:

• Growing business and generating pipeline
• Releasing and building demand for new product capabilities
• Establishing leadership in the inclusive language space

Since the beginning of 2019, the Acrolinx marketing team has made huge strides in their pipeline, reflecting the dedication, creativity, and excellence of this small, but mighty, cross-continental team. In addition, this pipeline helped to secure a series of impressive customer wins from Fortune 2000 companies, as Acrolinx ultimately surpassed its aggressive growth objectives for 2019 and 2020. 

What Makes Acrolinx’s Marketing Team Outstanding

The Acrolinx marketing team is defined by determination, collaboration, and self-sufficiency. The launch of Acrolinx’s new website embodied the determination and collaboration from the marketing team and demonstrated their ability to set up a brand new site — including all the web development and content creation, without the help of an agency. 

As a fully remote, cross-continental team with a reduced budget, the Acrolinx marketing department beat the odds to work better together than ever before. The unique circumstances of the pandemic underscored and emphasized the success the Acrolinx marketing department has had over the past two years. This team’s commitment to getting the job done well, and its fearless attitude when it comes to learning new skills and adapting to different market environments, has positioned Acrolinx incredibly well coming out of the global pandemic. 

The most distinguishable aspect of the marketing team’s achievements is its creation of thoroughly researched, high-quality, and informative content — content that builds credibility, establishes authority and raises awareness. In contrast to its competitors, Acrolinx’s prioritization of inclusive language and accessibility has established Acrolinx as an industry leader. 

Guides to Inclusive Language

Since 2019, the Acrolinx marketing department has successfully launched numerous campaigns and initiatives, including one on inclusive language. The Acrolinx Guide to Inclusive Language has quickly become a playbook for companies embarking on their own journeys with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Alongside other popular assets and blogs, Acrolinx’s two webinars on inclusive language have attracted over 1000 registrants. The Acrolinx marketing team has also developed a relationship with DEI influencer Vivian Acquah, and later this year, Acrolinx will speak at Vivian’s Amplify DEI conference, and at LavaCon. Acrolinx also looks forward to hosting a DEI roundtable with DEI leaders from Fortune 2000 companies. 

Acrolinx also celebrated a major product release, when it launched Acrolinx Targets. The marketing team supported the launch with a product-focused webinar, a targeted email campaign, sales enablement materials, and multiple blogs. Acrolinx also launched a new website in early 2021, focused on relevant industries and target personas. Additionally, Acrolinx started the innovative, “Wine and Wisdom” event series; attendees shared their enterprise content challenges while tasting wine and cheese, leading to significant new business opportunities. Other accomplishments include an increasing social media presence (with LinkedIn followers up 20% YoY); the launch of a new internal content management system, including the migration of over 600 assets; and the cementing of Acrolinx’s position as a leading authority on-brand tone of voice, with the release of the Second Edition, Watch Your Tone! eBook — a new workbook, blog series, and a jointly hosted webinar and guide with Content Science.

What the Team Has Been Up to Since Their Stevie Win

Since Acrolinx won the best marketing department Silver Stevie, their commitment to high-quality, well-researched, and informative content has continued with the release of new assets. The content aims to educate, inspire, and lead a discussion on inclusive language. Acrolinx’s dedication to research emphasizes our understanding that the first step towards inclusion is to listen and learn.

The recently published Inclusive Language for Executives guide features pioneering research into how global organizations are implementing diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives and inclusive language in particular. The State of Inclusivity industry reports are soon to be released. Each report analyzes and measures the inclusivity and clarity of website content from industry-leading companies in different sectors, including:

• Technology
• Pharmaceutical and medical device
• Manufacturing
• Financial services

Acrolinx’s integrated approach of letting content fuel and guide campaigns has produced fantastic. Late-summer campaigns and programs targeting HR and D&I leaders — and built around our new content — have generated leads and helped us meet (and exceed) pipeline goals. 

As they look forward to 2022, they plan to continue to drive conversations about inclusive language, the ultimate goal is to help global organizations create content that’s free from bias. They have continued to host innovative virtual events that bring together D&I and content leaders.

To underscore how Acrolinx’s writing assistant software brings inclusive language into an enterprise content strategy, the marketing team produced all of the campaign materials using the Acrolinx platform. The success of the content produced by the team reinforces how Acrolinx helps content teams produce better-performing content that’s accessible, engaging, and helpful. 

Acrolinx won the Silver Stevie Awards for Marketing Department of the Year in The 2021 International Business Awards.

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About SYSPRO

Stevie-winner SYSPRO remains one of the longest-standing privately owned, global vendors of ERP software.  They operate in over 60 countries, across six continents, and have over 500 employees. SYSPRO’s strength lies in its focus on making things possible for manufacturers and distributors through their specialist, industry-built approach to technology that can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, and accessed from a mobile device. 

Due to their industry specialization and industry-built solutions, they have been able to guide customers to overcome the disruptions presented by the pandemic. According to a 2020 SYSPRO research study, 60% of businesses were impacted by supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, 37% of companies were unable to provide the remote work capabilities to employees that were required and only 38% of businesses felt that their business systems were adequate to cope with the disruption.

Businesses came to realize that in order to overcome supply chain disruptions, their business operations need to consider a different approach to ensure supply-chain resiliency. This shift in strategic sourcing and procurement is now being considered as a viable option worldwide.

SYSPRO ERP

SYSPRO ERP can support manufacturers to digitalize by providing the systems and platforms that resolve the biggest areas of impact; remote workforce enablement, implementation and automation of business systems to handle the procurement and sourcing policy changes, distribution and lead time planning; and analytics providing data real-time to support improved decision-making. 

Key features of SYSPRO include:

1.MOM: SYSPRO’s Manufacturing Operations Management Solution provides complete manufacturing lifecycle management from planning, scheduling, publishing, collecting, tracking and analyzing to optimize and improve end-to-end manufacturing operations. Benefits for manufacturers include increased productivity and lowers costs by minimizing loss within the business

2.Recall Management: Product Recall is a traceability system that allows manufacturers to perform a full product recall quickly and efficiently by providing instant access to all of the critical information to track a suspect product, throughout the value chain.  It supplies the necessary information to identify, isolate and action the activities that need to occur within the predetermined recall time limit.

3.Supply Chain Portal: The Supply Chain Portal is an interactive web platform that facilitates online transactions between an enterprise and its suppliers. The Supply Chain Portal streamlines collaboration between buyers and suppliers and minimizes document handling – reducing potential fraud. It automates business processes and ensures transparency of supplier transactions.

4.Choice of cloud on prem or hybrid: Whether meeting a strategic IT imperative, providing for centralized control, requiring visibility and manageability across dispersed locations, enabling remote location access or considering aspects such as where your IP should reside, SYSPRO ERP gives manufacturers the choice to deploy either in the cloud, on-premise or both (hybrid).

5.Specialist Industry experience: SYSPRO’s ERP solution is built to deliver last-mile, industry-specific functionality for manufacturers and distributors across a group of selected industries in which we have thorough expertise. By taking advantage of SYSPRO’s industry frameworks for your sector, you can benefit from best practices while minimizing the cost and time involved in your ERP implementation. 

6.Specialist Consulting and Value-Added Service: SYSPRO is ideally positioned to provide value-add through specialist consulting services. SYSPRO’s Consulting Services team is uniquely equipped to enable a business to unlock strategic value from their investment in SYSPRO. The team is represented by Project Managers and Consultants of all disciplines, who combined have many years of experience successfully implementing complex ERP projects within a wide range of industries.

How the ERP Helps Customers

SYSPRO’s strength lies in its focus on making things possible for manufacturers and distributors through its specialist, industry-built approach to technology that can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, and accessed from a mobile device. Working as a trusted advisor and committed to the success of both customers and partners, their goal is to succeed together, creating rewarding, long-standing relationships. SYSPRO’s customer retention rate is 98%, significantly higher than the industry average, with some customers remaining for more than three decades.

Ruprecht, a value-added food solutions company that makes ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook products, provides a good illustration of the impact SYSPRO ERP has on mid-market manufacturing organizations. Over the previous 10 years, the company had heavily invested in product innovation, which paid off with rapid growth. But to fully capitalize on this growth, Ruprecht needed a fully integrated business solution. The manufacturer’s in-house ERP and accounting software were not tightly connected, and it lacked key capabilities such as production scheduling, full inventory visibility, manufacturing standard costing, and ‘what if’ scenarios.

SYSPRO addressed these challenges, saving the company an estimated $1.5 to $2 million a year according to Ruprecht’s CFO. The customer was also able to implement AI, which enabled it to build a predictive model for optimizing the supply chain, prepare for the weather and other disruptions and become a more agile organization — all of which was tightly integrated with SYSPRO ERP.

SYSPRO won the Gold Stevie Award for ERP Solution and the Silver Stevie Award for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Technology in The International Business Awards.

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