Awards Worth Winning (Cont'd)

Second, the ability of the jury to really dig into the justification for the nomination is limited. For the "Most Successful Implementation" category, for example, to really assess the success of an implementation, the jury should show up at the customer's premises, clip boards in hand, to look for solid evidence that the project is really delivering the benefits extolled and that the service provider's staff using the solution really are better off than they were before the project started.

Similarly, for the "Most Innovative" or "Best New Product" categories, the jury really needs to have some detailed requirements against which to compare nominees - and not just amongst the nominees, but against the other competitors in the market too.

Can the process be improved to be more useful and informative? Perhaps. In my opinion, it would begin to be a whole lot more like a formal evaluation conducted by experts paid to their work. Evaluations would be an on-going exercise, with new products and new releases tested against published criteria all through the year. "Best Project" nominees would be subject to the same kind of scrutiny - based on firm facts about the state of the service provider's capabilities before the project, and after.

Today's current approach to OSS awards does serve to add a bit of excitement to the OSS conference (at least for the nominated vendors…). But if the real point is to provide concrete facts that could help steer service providers, other vendors and implementation partners toward the real "Best" solutions, than my vote goes for a more robust, rigorous evaluation forum.

LTC International Inc. specializes in helping companies in the Telecommunications industry make more profits. We do that by bringing serious first hand experience to bear to align services and projects with business strategies and ensuring that measurable objectives are established for everyone to meet. We deliver results for Service Providers, Hardware and Software Vendors to Service Providers, and to investors. For more information, please visit our web site: www.ltcinternational.com.

« Previous   |   1   |   2   |   Subscribe

Send Comment

© 2005, All information contained herein is the sole property of Pipeline Publishing, LLC. Pipeline Publishing LLC reserves all rights and privileges regarding the use of this information. Any unauthorized use, such as copying, modifying, or reprinting, will be prosecuted under the fullest extent under the governing law.