Software &Technology CorporateAmerica
awardstwentyfifteen
Scaling the Heights K2 is a global software firm focused on providing unique software solutions to meet the ever increasing demands of the business market. We invited Dave Marcus to provide us with an insight into the company’s revolutionary platform.
Saving Time and Money We asked TTR’s CEO, Shon Holyfield, about winning this award and he reveals to what he attributes his firm’s success.
www.corporateamerica-news.com
BEST
AL N CAPIT HUMA S N IO SOLUT ER V O PR ID
USA
TemPositions’ 53 year history is not the only thing that sets it apart from its competitors in the temporary staffing industry. Another is its innovative technology and cutting edge software, which is why they were selected for the “Best Human Capital Solutions Provider – USA” award. While the typical business operations of most staffing firms are characterized by a heavy reliance on manual processes to acquire talent, fill orders from clients, and then bill for services, TemPositions’ entire business model focuses on a highly automated approach to staffing, where many human-centric tasks are handled by computerized systems. Thanks to this level of automation, a high percentage of the orders received by the company are filled in seconds without any human intervention whatsoever! This allows the firm’s staffing professionals to more fully concentrate on tasks that add value to their customers; namely, building the very best talent pool and nurturing candidate and client relations. Not only does this make TemPositions’ employees more productive, but it also provides their clients with electronic tools they can’t find elsewhere, which in turns drives revenue and cements customers to them for years. As President and CEO, James Essey, explains,
“A temporary staffing firm retains clients by making the very best talent available quickly and easily. In order to keep improving the customer experience, we are constantly upgrading our systems to allow us to not only find the best candidates among the thousands of applicants that are returned from job board searches, but assign them to jobs, track their time worked, and accurately pay for their services and bill our clients, while making online reporting available 24-7.” Imagine this scenario: you are responsible for covering several departmental absences that were called in early in the morning before the office was open. With the TemPositions system, you would log into their system from home and enter a work order, showing the number of people needed, skills required, work hours, etc. You can even use a prior work order as a model and just make relevant edits. Once you enter the details, you will be presented with a list of candidates who performed work for you before. You can select any of them to fill the spot or request new candidates. When you make your selection, the system automatically reaches out to the selected candidate(s)–or locates candidates on its own who match your specifications—and offers them the job via text message, email and interactive voice response. Once the candidate(s) accept, you get a confirming email that the job is filled. All of this could have taken place before a TemPositions office even opened! Once on the assignment, time is tracked electronically to avoid calculation errors, and a GPS phone application even insures the work location. You approve the hours worked via email and receive your invoice electronically as well. And all spending can be tracked 24-7 through a web portal offering reports on demand. The use of a system like this revolutionizes the way staffing services are ordered and fulfilled. TemPositions finds new customers each week to add to its satisfied user base because of this strong competitive advantage.
Name: James Essey, CEO Email: info@tempositions.com Web Address: TemPositions.com Address: 420 Lexington Ave. 21st Floor New York, NY 10170
JANUARY 2016
CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Welcome to...
CorporateAmerica’s
2015 Software & Technology Awards From the methods it uses to manage its people and internal processes, to the ways in which clients interact with it online - even its social media presence - almost everything about a firm is shaped by the decisions it makes - or restrictions placed upon it - concerning its uses of technology and software. Being technology driven this industry is naturally highly changeable, and the last twelve months have been no different, with the Internet of Things and the increasing popularity of mobile devices driving the need for greater connectivity and putting many firms under pressure to upgrade their existing software to meet the demands of their clients. In order to recognize the dedicated work undertaken by the firms in this industry the 2015 Software & Technology Awards were created. Within these pages we have turned the the spotlight on the most technologically ground-breaking, user friendly and results-driven industry leaders operating in the US today and invited them to talk us through the secrets behind their success.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Contents K2 - Best Business Process Management Suite: K2 Page 6 TTR, Inc. - Best Sales & Use Tax Software - Oregon Page 10 Agilysys - Most Innovative Hospitality Solutions Firm of the Year - USA & Best POS Software Solution: INFOGENESIS® POS Page 14 Coggins International - Best in Aviation & Energy IT Solutions - Fuel Supply Chain Automation Solution of the Year: FuelsAutomation™ Solution Page 16 B&L Information Systems Inc - Best for Enterprise Resource Planning Software - California Page 18 Contract Room, Inc. - Best Cloud-Based Negotiation Management Platform Page 20 Findability Sciences - Best Data Integration Framework: Findability Platform® Page 22 Primero Systems Inc. Best Custom Software Provider - USA Page 24 UC Point Inc. - Best Unified Communications & Collaboration Company Page 26 VigiTrust - Best for IT Security Educational Programmes - New York Page 28 Village Green Global Inc - Energy Efficiency Solutions Firm of the Year - USA & Best Energy Audit Software Program: SMARTweb Page 30
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
K2
K2 is a global firm focused on providing unique software solutions to meet the ever increasing demands of the business market. We invited Dave Marcus from the firm to provide us with an insight into their revolutionary platform.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Best Business Process Management Suite: K2
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: K2 Name: Dave Marcus Email: sales@k2.com Web Address: www.k2.com Address: 5150 Village park Dr SE, STE 200 Bellevue, WA 98006 Telephone: 844-452-APPS
K2 provides software solutions that make it easy for both small and large enterprises to create process-centric applications and solutions without the need for custom coding. This radically reduces time to value and lifecycle management costs and helps IT scale to meet the ever-increasing demands of the business. We are a global organisation, serving our 2500 customers in more than 84 countries around the world. Operating globally provides us with a number of unique challenges, and we have found that although every country in the world is always keen to use the latest software, they all approach it in a different way. This global adaptation and innovation has spread throughout K2 as an organization and is seen by our customers in their use of the platform. The K2 offering, both on premises and in the cloud, provides a set of visual tools that enable our customers to easily compose process-driven applications with our robust workflow engine that can be easily updated or changed as the needs of the business changes. The platform was born from research into our clients’ needs, which highlighted that traditional code centric ways of creating business solutions are not scalable – something we set out to change with our offering. The use of BPM technology is being expanded beyond a few large-scale, complex enterprise transformation projects to solve a much broader range of needs and K2’s innovation has been focused on supporting this trend. Our unique platform also makes it possible for a broader group of people, who are not developers but know the process, to create applications while still providing IT and the business the ability to maintain a level of necessary governance, management and compliance.
As such, at K2 it has always been our vision to enable businesses to operate at the speed of their people by creating a new way to deliver software solutions. Our success is attributed to our customers continuously challenging us and the tireless efforts of our own people and our partners to rise to that challenge and create a platform that is constantly seen as innovative, and constantly innovating. For example, as our customers look to the cloud for future innovation, we are right there with them. We recently released a SaaS-based solution called Appit. Using Appit, customers can quickly build apps and customize Microsoft SharePoint by using our forms, workflows and smartobjects. People are the key differentiator between our firm and our legion of competitors. Our approach is key as we work closely with our clients, both before and after the sales process, to ensure their ongoing success, which marks us out from our competitors. While our product offerings are a key aspect of the reason clients choose K2, it is ultimately our service that they value the most. Looking to the future, K2 has made major investments in branching out to new markets and industries and meeting business needs at a departmental level, to onboard a new generation of customers. Additionally, 2016 will be a significant growth year for K2 with a major product release, significant growth in our cloud offerings and new solution offerings all due to be launched in the New Year.
We have seen vast innovations in technology over the years since our firm was established in 2001, particularly with the growth of cloud, mobile and the Internet of Things (IOT), which has grown in popularity over the past three to four years. IOT has taken off because of the proliferation of mobile devices, making it so that users are fully connected across all devices, at all times. This has led to the need for pervasive access to business applications. Mobile devices also produce a lot of data, which our clients need to make use of – an endeavour we support them in. We do this by enabling any application built on our platform to be accessible from any device: Android, iOS, and Windows. We support native features on those devices, such GPS locators and cameras, as well. Along with the opportunities IOT growth presents, there are also a number of challenges inherent in the software market, including stiff competition, which has made it increasingly necessary for firms in the sector to retain focus and ensure they innovate in an agile way to maintain customer satisfaction
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
TTR, Inc.
TTR provides tax answers to companies through a revolutionary subscription-based website. Each tax answer TTR provides can save a subscriber anywhere from 30 minutes to hours. TTR has more time saving tax answers than any other company in the U.S.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Best Sales & Use Tax Software - Oregon
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: TTR, Inc. Name: Shon Holyfield, CEO Web Address: www.ttrus.com
TTR’s CEO, Shon Holyfield, was asked about winning this award and to what he attributes their success to, “It always feels nice to be acknowledged. Our success is attributable to our great people, our amazing clients, and our commitment to delivering value.” Mr. Holyfield believes such awards “are very important” to the industry. “Awards acknowledge a ‘job well done.’ That is important for any team that works hard and does great work,” Mr. Holyfield adds.
“1. Is the person hard working? What proof do we have of this? Hard work trumps all. That is why hard working professionals do so well – even if they are weaker in other areas professionally.
TTR recently created and released free tax laws on their website. “TTR is the first company to make all U.S. statutes and regulations available to the public, for free. TTR’s teams maintain this content and ensure that it is up to date at all times as well,” Mr. Holyfield stresses.
“3. Is the person an expert in the area they are interviewing to work? If we are interviewing someone in sales, then what evidence do we have that they are an expert in sales? What experience(s) do they bring to the table?
Opportunities and challenges “The market is full of opportunity,” Mr. Holyfield said when asked to give an overview of the software and technology market today as well as the opportunities and challenges there are for firms operating in the industry. “Challenges come in many forms. Most challenging for most in the tax software space is taking the complex and developing solutions that are simple. To do well in the technology space, one need only become an expert, work with those that want and need help, develop solutions that work, and ensure it is delivered simply. Simpler said than done, for sure – but with hard work, it is doable,” Mr. Holyfield explains. “Legal changes, news, and updates are the source of our maintenance process. Our teams must stay on top of all tax law changes. There are thousands of articles of information reviewed daily by our teams. We have to organize them, read them, understand them, and then make accurate changes to our TTR value added content and tax answers. We are constantly discovering smarter and faster ways to maintain our content,” he adds. “Time zones are bit of an issue – most of our clients are east coast and we are west coast. It requires us to get up a bit earlier in the morning for sure,” Mr. Holyfield explains when asked if there are any specific challenges and opportunities that are unique to their firm’s region.
“2. Is the person up beat and full of energy? In our experience, energetic people love life, learn faster, and are just more fun to be around. They carry an energy that is contagious and is very much needed in a “word-intensive” area like tax law.
“As far as clients – every company is a client and we treat them that way, whether or not they are signed up as a client,” he adds. Looking ahead “Our people care. Really care for others,” sums up what makes TTR unique according to Mr. Holyfield who goes on to explain this interesting point in further detail. “It is a way of doing things around here, it starts with care and ends with being nice. We have 10 named corporate core values/characteristics and we talk about them all the time around here – we even do trainings and presentations a few times each month. We hold true to these core values/characteristics. Our people make all that happen,” he says. TTR’s plans for 2016 and beyond are, “New content and new product lines. We are strengthening our offerings across all tax types. We also have a few surprises for the industry; we really love game changing moves and there are several on the horizon.” Mr. Holyfield enthuses. “TTR is fortunate to work with a diversity of clients that include companies, state agencies, and schools. We have over 2,000 companies that trust and use our tax answers every day. Our goal is to become the most widely trusted and used tax website in the world and we are well on our way there,” he concludes.
When working in an industry that is constantly evolving, measures need to be taken to ensure that a company is at the forefront of emerging developments. Mr. Holyfield goes on to explain this as it applies to TTR, “We engage our clients. We’ve developed ways to gather information from them on a real time, no filters in place basis” he says. “Our clients want accurate tax answers and we want to deliver just that. We take all suggestions to heart and find ways to make our customers “right” by adding the very items they request as fast as possible,” he adds. What to look for in staff and clients Holyfield explains the characteristics he looks for when hiring staff: www.corporateamerica-news.com • 13
CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Agilysys Most Innovative Hospitality Solutions Firm of the Year - USA & Best POS Software Solution: INFOGENESIS® POS
Agilysys is a leading technology company that provides next-generation point-of-sale, property management, inventory and procurement, workforce management, analytics, document management and mobile and wireless solutions and services to the hospitality industry. The company’s innovative solutions and services allow property managers to better connect, interact and transact with their customers by streamlining operations, improving efficiency, increasing guest recruitment and wallet share, and enhancing the guest experience.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: Agilysys Name: Robert Shecterle Email: Robert.shecterle@agilysys.com Web Address: www.agilysys.com Address: 1000 Windward Concourse, suite 250, Alpharetta, GA 30005 Telephone: 770-810-6046
The firm serves four major market sectors: Gaming, both corporate and tribal; Hotels, Resorts and Cruise; Foodservice Management; and Restaurants, Universities, Stadia and Healthcare. A significant portion of the company’s consolidated revenue is derived from contract support, maintenance and subscription services. Agilysys operates throughout North America, Europe and Asia, with corporate services located in Alpharetta, GA, and offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. For more information, visit www.agilysys.com. “We are honored to receive this recognition for our hard work and commitment to delivering next-generation hospitality solutions” says Jim Walker, VP – Sales and Marketing when asked how he feels to have won this award. “Our mission is to provide state-of-the-art technology that helps our customers streamline operations, increase guest loyalty and wallet share and deliver exceptional guest service, even in the most challenging situations. Agilysys’ products not only fulfill that mission but also enable customers to personalize their engagement with guests and create lasting connections that result repeat business” he elaborates. “Awards such as this are all about recognizing innovation and service excellence. It is motivating to see success recognized and awards like the Software & Technology Awards do just that” he adds. Case study Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock, in Blowing Rock, NC, recently selected a comprehensive solution suite from Agilysys ─ including Visual One™ PMS, InfoGenesis® POS and InfoGenesis® Flex ─ to streamline efficiency and enhance guest service at the luxury mountain property. Chetola Resort features a mix of hotel rooms, timeshare units, and rental and ownership condominiums as well as a restaurant, sporting club and full-service spa. Faced with a wide range of hospitality management and guest service requirements, the resort’s executive team conducted an extensive evaluation to identify the best solutions to optimize the guest lifecycle across the property. Chetola Resort will use the following Agilysys solutions Visual One PMS ─ a comprehensive and fully integrated property management system that offers a wide range of best-in-class features and functionality, including front office operations, guest history, housekeeping, reservations management and more. Its user-friendly screens are laid out in a logical and understandable format, with quick-feature icons and drag-and-drop capabilities. The system offers optional modules for accounting, activities, club management, comp accounting, condo accounting, guest marketing, sales and catering, and spa management. InfoGenesis POS ─ a comprehensive point-of-sale system that combines an easy-to-use terminal and tablet touchscreen application with industry-leading offline capabilities. Designed for multi-unit and complex operations, InfoGenesis POS features real-time reporting, support for packages and prix fixe menus, and multi-language capabilities that drive service flexibility and
increase operational efficiency. The system easily manages any combination of food, beverage and retail services and integrates with both other Agilysys next-generation solutions and a wide variety of third-party providers. InfoGenesis Flex ─ Agilysys’ mobility solution that offers full point-of-sale functionality delivered on a convenient tablet device. InfoGenesis Flex provides signature capture, adaptable kitchen and receipt printing for large service areas, and a feature-rich mobile experience for foodservice operations. The solution is designed to keep revenue flowing and guests satisfied in the most demanding high-volume environments, and its powerful offline capabilities ensure uninterrupted performance, even when Wi-Fi connectivity is inconsistent. Additionally, Drury Hotels Company, the recipient of the highest score in its class in the J.D. Power North American Hotel Guest Satisfaction study for the 10th consecutive year, is conducting a pilot evaluation of Agilysys’ rGuest™ Stay solution at select Drury properties. rGuest Stay is a next-generation property management system (‘PMS’) that helps hotel operators streamline guest service, ensure payment security and boost efficiency. Drury Hotels, which operates hotels in 21 states, needed a flexible property management system that combined ease of use with exceptional functionality to drive a superior customer experience and improve overall hotel operations. Pending the completion of the pilot, the company additionally plans to integrate rGuest Stay with Agilysys rGuest Pay to deploy a seamless PMS and payment gateway solution that will offer secure EMV and P2PE PCI-validated payments with predictable costs. rGuest Stay is a ground breaking property management system built on the company’s new rGuest hospitality technology platform, which supports cloud, on-premises and hybrid delivery of the platform-based solutions. The guest-centric, standards-based PMS relies on an open platform that enables rich integration with applications delivered from Agilysys, its partners and customers. The platform offers business-driven outcomes, helping customers increase revenue, reduce operating costs and strengthen the guest connection. When asked about their plans for the future, “Agilysys plans to continue to innovate and deliver exceptional solutions to the hospitality industry. Our products will continue to change the way our customers engage their guests, enabling the delivery of high quality customer experiences and efficient business operations” Walker responds. “Agilysys’ next generation platform, rGuest, provides operators with a comprehensive solution that helps them win the competitive guest recruitment and wallet share battles. Built on rGuest’s advanced architecture, rGuest Seat, rGuest Pay, rGuest Analyze and rGuest Stay solutions each bring new levels of flexibility and business process optimization across the organization” he concludes.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: Coggins International Name: Keith Coggins Email: keith@coggins.com Web Address: www.coggins.com Address: Headquarters, Terminus 100, 3280 Peachtree Road, NE, Suite 1110, Atlanta, Georgia 30305 USA Telephone: 001 404 389 1450
Coggins International Best in Aviation & Energy IT Solutions - Fuel Supply Chain Automation Solution of the Year: FuelsAutomation™ Solution
Coggins International is a leading Automation Solutions and IT Services company, specializing in Aviation, Defense and Energy applications. Their highly sought after FuelsAutomation™ Solution enables businesses and governments to automate their complete inventory management and supply chain operations, by leveraging best-in-class technology with proven expertise. They provide IT Services, Systems Integration, Software Development, Classroom & Field Training, E-learning Solutions, Help Desk and Outsourced services, with an exceptional track record.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Coggins International are well known throughout the industry for their dedication to the customer, believing you have to earn their business every day. Before, during and after a contract period, they are always at your service. The company was officially established in 2006, but its origin can be traced back to the summer of 1978 when Keith Coggins formed Coggins Systems, Inc. (now Varec, Inc., an SAIC company), in response to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s need for fast track automation during the 1970s energy crisis. As a result of Keith Coggins’ previous professional history of automation and technology innovations with the U.S. Navy Petroleum Office and other government organizations, Coggins Systems was selected to provide a complete, turn-key automation solution for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)— the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world, to include a computer-based instrumentation and control system. The success of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve automation program catapulted Coggins Systems into the oil & gas industry and by the early 1990s Keith Coggins created a Microsoft Windows NT-based software product designed for measurement, control and automation called FuelsManager®. This was during the time when the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was seeking Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software solutions for its new Fuels Automated System (FAS, currently referred to as BSM-Energy) Program. Several major oil companies immediately selected FuelsManager as their corporate standard for automatic tank gauging (ATG) and bulk inventory management applications, making FuelsManager an instant success. In May 1994, Keith Coggins was invited to the Pentagon to present FuelsManager to an executive FAS review committee in consideration of using it as the Base Level automation solution. Coggins Systems was sole-sourced selected by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and was awarded the first FAS Base Level contract in January 1996. Today, FuelsManager is installed worldwide at over 600 U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines bases, and Defense Fuel Support Points (DFSPs) in support of DLA’s Defense Energy Support Center’s mission. Embracing the open architecture of Microsoft Windows NT, Keith Coggins developed another market leading product he called the 8130 RTU, allowing FuelsManager to seamlessly integrate all major manufacturers’ proprietary ATG instrumentation into a single system. The Coggins Systems 8130 RTU together with FuelsManager completely changed the way the oil & gas industry measures, controls and automates the petroleum supply chain.
Over the years, Keith Coggins pioneered many innovations above and beyond those mentioned, including greatly improving Aviation fuels management in the mid-2000s with the introduction of paperless fuels ticketing—part of a patented process he conceived. This refined past is just a glimpse of what is ahead for Coggins International’s progressive future. Keith Coggins, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Officer of Coggins International is responsible for the company’s overall technical leadership and the strategic direction of the company, as well as business development and key account management. Mr. Coggins’ technical and business experience spans over four decades, indeed he is best known for creating the market leading software products, FuelsAutomation® and FuelsManager®, the original design and implementation of the automation system for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Fuels Automated System (FAS). Mr. Coggins has comprehensive knowledge of leading-edge technologies with the demonstrated ability to provide state-of-the-art solutions for complex applications through computerized automation within the oil & gas industry. Location Coggins International’s Headquarters and Technical Support Center are located in the heart of Buckhead—an upscale, uptown district within the city of Atlanta. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Beverly Hills of the South’, Buckhead and its surroundings are home to plenty of cuisine, entertainment, and sights to see. At the corner of Peachtree & Piedmont—Atlanta’s most prestigious intersection—stand two world-class office towers, five-star dining, street-level retail and, of course, Coggins International. There is a special energy to this ultra-modern property—where everything you want, meets everything you need. Their facility’s cutting-edge infrastructure has the latest and greatest in technology to support their broad range of IT Services including: Systems Integration, Formal & Field Training, Help Desk, Software Configuration Management and Deployment Services. Hosting over 1,000 military, civilian and government personnel annually, Coggins International chose Buckhead as the ideal location for its Headquarters and Technical Support Center, as it boasts top-notch amenities including the finest hotels, dining and shopping in the Southeast. It offers unrivaled convenience to all parts of the metro area, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Buckhead is the only office submarket with access to three major arteries: GA-400, I-75 and I-85, and it is supported by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) and Buckhead Uptown Connection (BUC)—a free community shuttle.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
B&L Information Systems Inc Best for Enterprise Resource Planning Software - California
B&L Information Systems is a global leader in providing integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) for metalcasters. Since 1976, B&L has used their deep understanding of the specific challenges and problems of foundries and die casters to create ERP solutions which match the way metalcasters operate, making Odyssey easier to learn and use. We caught up with Matthew Gacek, Vice President of Business Development for B&L, to find out more.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: B&L Information Systems Name: Matt Gacek Email: BusinessDevelopment@BLInfo.com Web Address: www.BLInfo.com Address: 4707 Rambo Road, Bridgman MI 49106 Telephone: 269-465-6207
2015 really has been an exciting year for B&L Information Systems Inc. In Q1, B&L Information Systems signed with a diverse cross-section of American metalcasters to be their ERP software provider, where we saw a wave of customers going “live” with Odyssey ERP in the first six months of 2015. Furthermore, in November we announced partnering with an additional payroll/HR resource for Odyssey customers called ‘Paylocity’. This software specializes in providing the best engineered, cloud-based payroll and human resource solutions accompanied by world-class service and support.
In our industry, the state of California has some unique labor-reporting challenges due to the labor laws. However, we are quite proud of the fact that the Odyssey ERP system is the only metalcasting specific ERP to address those challenges.
Perhaps our most distinguishing feature is our integration of customer feedback, which allows us to continuously develop and improve our software for the metalcasting industry. In addition to the usual 2x a year surveys, our team has an on-line customer feedback forum which allows Odyssey customers to comment and vote on other Odyssey users’ suggestions, giving our R&D department a direct window into customer needs for programming development.Additionally, our R&D department works closely with our vendor partner, Progress Software. We find that this expands our programmers’ outlook beyond our company and into the larger technology sector.
As for this award, our whole team is very honored to have been recognized with such a prestigious award and feels our dedication to serving our industry played a big part in this success. We firmly believe that this recognition of excellence is certainly a distinguishing difference among providers of industry-specific ERP software.
Matt Gacek, Vice President- Business Development
When working in a highly competitive industry such as ours, self-improvement is at the heart of everything we do and is highly encouraged by our CEO. Our staff are continuous learners and people who solving a challenge; our clients are companies looking to solve their technolo¬gy challenges or improve efficiencies.
Looking toward the future, our focus will be to expand our services in North America, and we will continue to grow our market percentage across the continent.
Philip Laney, CEO
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Best Cloud-Based Negotiation Management Platform Contract Room, Inc.
ContractRoom is a cloud-based platform that streamlines the multi-party negotiation and contracting process for companies of any size and industry. We caught up with the company to learn about why this solution is so innovative.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Name: Katie Cook Email: kcook@contractroom.com Web Address: www.contractroom.com Address: 1710 S Amphlett Blvd. Suite 101, San Mateo, CA 94402 Telephone: 1-800-950-9101
ContractRoom: ContractRoom is designed to stop the endless back-and-forth, annoying redlines and costly errors. Instead, customers get perfect drafts, fast negotiation and foolproof compliance. ContractRoom manages business negotiations from inception to completion and transforms a tedious manual paper process into a dynamic data-driven operation, making it more productive and predictable. We believe our success to date can be attributed to staying true to our original vision to make the world more agreeable. We stand alone in tackling one of the biggest pain points in the business world today: the negotiation. Getting people to discuss and agree is the most important part of closing a deal; however, the technology to accomplish this has not changed in over 30 years. Beyond simplifying multi-party collaboration, ContractRoom uses machine-learning to optimize the overall process and provide predictive agreement. No longer will negotiators have to operate in a vacuum; instead they’ll tap into the “collective intelligence” of their peers, leading to better business outcomes.
Currently we are changing the way Fortune 500 enterprises are reaching agreement internally and externally with their counterparties. A food & beverage company uses ContractRoom to streamline their global procurement and distribution process 75% faster; whereas, a pharmaceutical company is saving millions and speeding up their go-to-market process. Also, ContractRoom is developing its partnership channel worldwide to make happy contacting available to anyone, anywhere. Corporate America: It is apparent that the enterprise market is ready for this type of innovation, which explains why ContractRoom is getting so much traction. They’re looking forward to helping even more organizations “Negotiate less, Agree More”!
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Findability Sciences Best Data Integration Framework: Findability Platform®
A global product and consulting company, Findability Sciences is a leading IBM Big Data Partner and IBM Watson® EcoSystem Partner. Along with Findability Platform® the company offers an Impact Measurement & Analysis (IMA) product to community impact organizations and Dapprdoo, a human centric application which retailers use to engage their customers by solving their fashion related dilemmas. Both IMA & Dapprdoo use IBM Watson’s cognitive computing power.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: Findability Sciences Name: Anand Mahurkar Email: anand@findabilitysciences.com Web Address: findabilitysciences.com Address: 303, Wyman St. Ste 300 Waltham, MA 02451 Telephone: +1 978 973 5545
Founded in 2010 in the Boston area, Findability Sciences has earned industry awards and recognition, including being nominated for New England Innovation Award and the IBM Insight 2014 App throw-down, and winning the 2015 SugarCRM Award. Findability platform® Findability platform® is a proven architecture and framework, which integrates internal structured and unstructured data (from previously siloed databases and document repositories), along with data from social media and data found online, to help leadership see a complete picture of their business, products, customers and employees. Awards for industry In an interview with the firm’s Anand Mahurkar, he tells us “We are excited to have won the Software Technology Award. Findability Platform® getting recognized as Best Data Integration Platform means a lot to us. This was all possible because of our global innovative team and our customers, who constantly pushed us to the next level to bring out the best from our solution” when asked how it feels to have won this award. He thinks awards like this are important to the industry he works in. He adds: “Recognitions like these help customers to isolate the solutions which are matured and successful. Also, it’s important for our teams to know that the work they are doing on a day-today basis to solve serious business challenges are noticed”.
Choosing staff and clients When it comes to the firm’s approach to people, they look for “people who think out of box, not afraid to try new things and appreciate disruptions with use of technology innovations” when choosing both staff and clients, Mahurkar explains. “We always look for Visionary & bold thinking play a crucial role.” The future “Findability Sciences is uniquely positioned to serve because of its robust product offerings combined with domain expertise. With our domain experts, we are able to understand customer’s business issues proactively and approach them with a very actionable data solution,” Mahurkar explains. This is what makes his company unique and separates them from their competitors. Looking to 2016 and beyond, Mahurkar says: “The future for big data and cognitive computing companies is great. Findability Sciences is poised to grow across various industry segments as awareness of benefits and success stories of big data are widely known. Our plan for 2016 and beyond is to try to bring more predictability to customer businesses through insights from data which they might not have imagined they can analyse!”
The software and technology market “The software technology market is gravitating towards the solutions which provide Systems of Engagement and Systems of Insights” Mahurkar reveals. “In the world of handheld devices and demand for simplicity of interaction with the system, Data is the King! The solutions which use Data effectively and provide insights, patterns and predictability are going to win. Those which provide means to engage the customers are going to succeed.” At present, Findability Sciences has multiple projects in a number of industries and in different parts of the world. “One is for a large health care group, the other is for an international bank and another for a university. This shows how our Findability Platform is customisable for diverse industries and can handle varied Big Data,” Mahurkar continues. Keeping up with emerging developments When working in an industry that is constantly evolving, Findability Sciences has “created an ecosystem of domain experts and focused subsidiaries to remain at the forefront of each of verticals changing demands”. Elaborating on the point of staying at the forefront of any emerging developments, Mahurkar says, “we acquire knowledge and expertise from various entities in the ecosystem. Additionally, we have partnered with companies like IBM, who are constantly innovating and bringing new technologies for partners like us to integrate in our solution.” www.corporateamerica-news.com • 23
CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Primero Systems Inc. Best Custom Software Provider - USA
One company leading the way in custom software development is Primero Systems. Primero is committed to helping businesses achieve their goals and potential through the infinite capabilities of software. No matter what unique challenges a business faces, Primero can create custom software tailored to suit a variety of needs. With a specialty in mission-critical software solutions, Primero helps businesses achieve a higher level of competitiveness, efficiency and compliance. Once Primero understands a company’s goals, its engineering team develops solutions to meet those goals. Each project is executed with the sensitivity to anticipate problems in advance and build solutions that navigate risk – yet not at the expense of usability.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: Primero Systems Inc. Name: German Porta Email: explore@primerosystems.com Web Address: www.primerosystems.com Address: 11440 West Bernardo Court, Suite 300 / San Diego, CA 92127 Telephone: 01 (866) 426-0779
Primero is often asked what sets them apart from the competition. According to German Porta, Primero CTO, “For more than two decades, Primero has worked hard to earn and retain the trust and respect of its customers. We believe that our reputation is our greatest asset. From providing a multi-million dollar enterprise solution to working on a smaller custom project, our commitment is steadfast. We do what it takes to make things right. Accuracy, responsibility and technical expertise are frequent comments we hear from our customers.” Many Primero customers have grown to become leaders in their respective industries and include name brands such as Apple and IBM. A common characteristic in Primero’s customer base is an appreciation for technology – and the desire for a true partner that shares a similar business philosophy. To exceed customer expectations, Primero’s hiring standards are high. Porta adds, “We seek individuals with a strong work ethic who possess top intellectual skills, integrity and respect for the customer. Our employees have to share the mindset that the customer is why we do what we do.”
Moving forward, numerous opportunities exist in the rapidly-changing world of custom software development, including those involving big data, the Internet of Things, robotics and data transfer. Big data provides companies with the ability to analyze data to guide decisions towards better efficiencies in all aspects of operations, marketing and sales. The Internet of things enables communications and interoperability between disparate devices, while the use of robotics offers continued automation of routine tasks. Expansive data transfer rates allow for increased video collaboration with remote development team members. Yet with each opportunity comes challenges, such as maintaining data security, data integrity and, when applicable, a consistent and engaging user experience. Primero will continue to seek out new technologies and make a dedicated effort to expand their base of product offerings. Their focus is to provide solutions that help their clients meet or exceed their goals through the proper and thoughtful application of modern technologies. The end goal is to help customers streamline their processes and give them the tools they need to make informed decisions. Concludes Porta, “When our customers succeed, we succeed.”
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
UC Point Inc. Best Unified Communications & Collaboration Company Company: UC Point Name: Markus P. Keller Email: marketing@uc-point.com Web Address: www.uc-point.com Address: Kranhaus 1 | 3rd Floor | Im Zollhafen 18 | D-50678 Cologne | Germany Telephone: +49 221 669 992 30
UC Point, founded in 1998, is a leading provider of global Unified Communications & Collaboration services. The holistic service offerings include managed services, as well as, dedicated offerings such as network analysis, Skype for Business roll outs, and worldwide 24/7 Enterprise Voice support. UC Point’s own remote troubleshooting and maintenance tool, Remote Appliance, is recognized as one of the best Unified Communications solutions honored with the German IT Innovation Award 2015. 26 • www.corporateamerica-news.com
CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
In 2012, UC Point was elected as the first worldwide Microsoft “Global Premier Support Lync Partner“. Three years later, the company is still considered an elite Microsoft Gold Communications and Cloud-Partner recognized as High Potential Partner for Skype for Business. Today, UC Point has become a market leader for Skype for Business and Enterprise Voice with a customer base in over 50 countries. “Our mission is to help our customers advance their businesses to support modern communications and collaboration principles for workplace, workforce and processes,” explains Markus P. Keller, CEO and founder of UC Point. Recent projects and clients One of the most successful projects in 2014/2015 for UC Point has been unifying the Paul Hartmann Groups corporate communications via a cloud-based Lync solution says Keller. Additional companies have recently become a part of UC Point’s customer portfolio, including: IATA, Gruner + Jahr and Nanostone Water. IATA – the International Air Transport Association – is the trade association for the world’s airlines, representing more than 260 airlines and 83% of total air traffic. In October 2015, UC Point began performing Gold Support Services for IATA. “Furthermore, we won Gruner + Jahr, one of the largest international publishers in the world. It reaches readers and users in more than 20 countries with over 500 media activities, magazines and digital offers.” G+J contracted UC Point for the migration to Skype for Business worldwide. The membrane solutions startup company, Nanostone Water, also became a new UC Point customer purchasing a Lync Health Check. Overview of the software and technology market Giving an overview of the software and technology market, what opportunities and challenges are there for firms operating in the industry? Keller answers, “UC Point’s core line of business is in the telecommunication industry, specializing in Unified Communications & Collaboration (UCC) services. Digital transformation is driving a fundamental change in ways of working – and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) is playing a vital part in providing the tools for employees to do their job.” According to the market research company Kable, the global unified communications and collaboration market will double over the next three years. In 2013 the market was worth about $25.1 billion, and the analyst expects this market to reach $50.1 billion by 2018. Kable expects mobility and new technologies such as WebRTC to be the key drivers for UCC. “However, challenges remain. There are four trends that will be influencing the UCC market over the next 12 months and beyond: Mobility, Interoperability, Cloud and Social Activities,” Keller continues. Company culture and staff Giving an insight into the organisation’s company culture, concerning their policy of enabling employees to work from home, Keller explains that “many managers today still prefer their employees to work in a local office, however, wrongfully so. We believe in the changing dynamics of modern communications and collaboration principles and we live what we preach.” As such, UC Point offers its employees a modern workplace that provides flexible work schedules, home office solutions and col-
laborative technology to successfully connect with remote teams and customers. In fact, 98 per cent of the team is spread out in various locations all over the world working either from a home office or travelling to and from customer sites. “Our company’s motto is: ‘We employ the best people we can get, regardless of where they live’”, he underlines. UC Point recently received a double recognition as a Top Employer from the European online employer platform Kununu. These awards particularly highlight the exceptional team spirit and people-oriented organization. “We believe that it is most important for both our staff and our clients to feel highly satisfied in working with UC Point. We look for specific characteristics, but more importantly we listen very carefully what our future employees and customers expect from us. In the end, it all comes down to good communication with each other!” Challenges and opportunities There are of course both challenges and opportunities in providing services to clients around the world. For example, in the worldwide deployment of Skype for Business companies are required to meet several stipulations as Keller points out. “India, for example, is a popular hub for Call Centers but IP-telephony is partially restricted in this country. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) dictates, that calls within a company network must be strictly separated from calls to/from the public PSTN. A violation against these regulations can result in considerable fines. As global UC specialists we are well-versed in country specific regulations and experienced to support our customer’s expansions with competent solutions,” he continues. “In contrast to our competitors, UC Point has taken a holistic approach to Unified Communications and Collaboration environments and has the expertise to be an integrated service provider for Enterprise Voice solutions. We offer the full range of global UCC services, including hardware, devices, network and software solutions as well as Managed UCC Services.” 2016 and beyond “Staying closely connected with Microsoft and their Unified Communications and Collaborations products, UC Point is consistently growing in customer base and experience” Keller underlines. “In the past two years alone we have expanded our business relationships and developed key business areas including services for Skype/ Lync Room Systems. Within the next five to ten years our goal is to become a leading global end-to-end solution provider for all Enterprise Voice scenarios - on premise, hybrid and cloud.” “The feedback we receive from our valued customers drives the continuous improvement of our services (CSI),” Keller adds. UC Point continues to enhance their product & service portfolio based on technological advancements and changing market requirements. Recent additions to the list of comprehensive offerings include solutions for monitoring & troubleshooting (UCP RAP), UCC management & analytics (UCP RAM), and network quality analysis (UCP DNA 365). “Our remote monitoring & maintenance tool, UCP Remote Appliance, UCP RAP, was honored with the IT Innovation Award. This placed our product amongst the best of Unified Communications solutions. We competed against more than 5,000 other applicants and convinced a jury of 80 subject matter experts.”
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
VigiTrust Best for IT Security Educational Programmes - New York
VigiTrust is a security firm specializing in cloud based eLearning programs, security compliance portals and providing security assessments based on the 5 Pillars of Security Framework™. Situated in the heart of Dublin city with regional offices in London, New York and Paris, VigiTrust has been providing information security and data compliance solutions for over 10 years. Founded by Mathieu Gorge in 2003, VigiTrust specializes in the promotion of security awareness & assessments through the provision of Cloud based e-Learning solutions, compliance portals and advisory services for its international clients in the healthcare, financial services, retail and government sectors. 28 • www.corporateamerica-news.com
CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: VigiTrust Name: Mathieu Gorge Email: mathieu.gorge@vigitrust.com Web Address: http://vigitrust.com/ Address: 261 Madison Avenue, 9th Floor - New York, NY 10016 Telephone: 001 212 750 5100
VigiTrust solutions enable organizations to achieve and maintain compliance with legal, industrial and security standards and frameworks. This includes data protection, data transfer and retention, Protected Health Information (PHI) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), ISO 27001 compliance programs and corporate governance. VigiTrust ensures global Fortune 500 customers comply with US Federal regulations, State regulations and European Directives. CEO – Mathieu Gorge Mathieu Gorge is the CEO and founder of VigiTrust (2003) and an established authority on IT security and risk management with more than 15 years international experience. Mathieu Gorge is the CEO and founder of VigiTrust (2003) and an established authority on IT security and risk management with more than 15 years international experience. Thanks to his international reputation and, building on themathieu-gorge-vigitrust success of the 5 Pillars of Security Framework™ which he created, Mathieu is in high demand as a speaker at international security conferences such as RSA, ENISA & ISACA. He is a well-respected figure in the security industry in EMEA and North America. Mathieu’s specialty areas include PCI DSS, HIPAA & ISO 27001 and he works closely with the PCICouncil (US& EU) as well as ANSI (US). Since 2006, Mathieu has been a Councillor for the Ireland France Chamber of Commerce and he has also recently taken on the role of Information Security Officer. Mathieu is also the Chairman of Infosecurity Ireland and an Official Reviewer for ANSI (one of the few Europeans!). Mathieu is heavily involved in security research and collaborative programs. He regularly moderates and speaks at security events organized ISACA (NYC, UK Central Chapter, Dublin), ISSA (Global Web Conference Committee), Geneva Security Forum (International collaboration on CIP), East West Institute (Cyber Security Forum & working groups), and ICTTF & ISS world. Mathieu has also completed extensive research work in the area of secure printing, data storage & archiving. Mathieu is also the brainchild behind the PCI DSS European Roadshow now in its third year (www.pcidsseuropeanroadshow.com). He regularly writes for TechTarget, Searchsecurity.com, ISACA, Searchstorage. com, Computer Fraud & Security, SC Magazine, ISSA Journal, Security Director and Baseline.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Village Green Global Inc Energy Efficiency Solutions Firm of the Year - USA & Best Energy Audit Software Program: SMARTweb
Village Green Global, Inc. (VGG) designs, funds, implements, and maintains the most technologically advanced energy efficiency projects in the global marketplace, through our innovative Energy Services Agreement (ESA). We spoke to them to find out more about their services, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them in their industry.
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CorporateAmerica • The Software & Technology Awards 2015
Company: VILLAGE GREEN GLOBAL INC. (VGG) Name: DOUG SMITH Email: doug@villagegreenglobal.com Web Address: www.villagegreenglobal.com Address: 1900 Main Street, Suite 600 Irvine, California 92613 Telephone: +1 949 294 3087
In terms of our clients, VGG assists commercial, school district, university, non-profit, medical, municipal, state, federal, and military customers. We determine their current energy usage, current energy costs, and possible energy efficiency project scope that would achieve the greatest savings in each area. The software reviews usage and costs for electricity, natural gas, water, waste/ recycling, and transportation (if applicable). Furthermore, the financial review of these utility invoices, initial project design, and funding feasibility are completed quickly and at no cost to our customers. All of our projects are designed and funded off balance sheet, which means that there are no out-of-pocket costs to our customers. As a result, all customers realize maximum energy and financial savings through our transparent project development and funding services, rapid project implementation, and lifetime maintenance coverage of our ESA. In our industry, there are varying degrees of energy management and audit software. However, we believe that we have developed a sophisticated funding model that will change the way companies do business. With our services, we allow businesses to incorporate efficiency programs into their business to measure manage and verify at no cost to their company.
At present, we are seeing a promising trend of integration of the IT, the information technology together with clean tech, which will create a path for intelligent energy. Our software consists of 2.5 million devices, from HVAC systems to electric coffee machines and we make sure that everything gets measured, gets controlled and gets real-time information in real time and consolidate data across portfolios of business types and facilities. Intelligent energy is part of an organizations economics now because IT has matured for it and clean tech funding is also maturing for it. A large factor of our success has been the methodologies we work with, and is not just the technology. When it comes to energy efficiency, companies don’t switch off devices, and it has to be automatic and has to be regulated. Furthermore, it has to be engineered for specific use and adapted to clients and their employees. We provide a transparent model for all parties to understand and work with. We measure and verify the projects and most of all educate people on the way they change the future of reducing energy. We believe that this is what will really drive change.
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