• TM Forum recognizes over a dozen leading companies and individuals for innovations and leadership in accelerating digital business transformation.

• Winners include China Mobile, Huawei, Netcracker, Salesforce, Telstra and Orange, among other members.

Digital Transformation World, Nice, France, and Parsippany, NJ—May 14, 2019 — TM Forum, the industry association driving digital transformation through collaboration, announced the winners for the TM Forum Excellence Awards 2019. As the industry comes to grips with intelligent operations for a 5G era, digital transformation projects from some of the world’s largest businesses, including Salesforce, Telstra and Orange, among others, swept the awards.

Recognized at the annual Excellence Awards gala on Monday, May 13, at the Le Negresco Hotel in Nice, France, at Digital Transformation Worldand today during the event’s opening keynotes, the 2019 winners exemplify commitment to the evolution of the industry through digital transformation, and the adoption of the suite of best practices and standards that TM Forum delivers through its Collaboration Community.

The 2019 Excellence Awards winners are:

Business Transformation Award

This award recognizes the communications, digital infrastructure or media service provider that has made the greatest strides in transforming its business operation to a low cost, agile and customer-centric model.

• Royal KPN/Vlocity/Salesforce – KPN’s Transformation into a Digital Telco
  KPN’s business services division selected Vlocity and Salesforce to modernize customer experience, accelerate time-to-market for new products and services, streamline business processes, and reduce cost by retiring legacy BSS applications. 

IT Transformation Award

This award recognizes the communications, digital infrastructure or media service provider which has made the greatest strides in transforming their IT function from being a reactive, inflexible organization to being a pro-active, flexible and integral part of the business which can respond quickly to changing business requirements and inspire new capabilities and products.

• China Mobile/Huawei – Artificial Intelligence on Mid-End Enabling 5G O&ME
  China Mobile transformed its OSS system to support 5G with the adoption of TM Forum’s APIs, open source communities and AI technology.

Operational Transformation and Agility Award

This award recognizes the company which has made an outstanding and innovative contribution to improving the business and operational agility of their customers (measured in terms of improved time-to-market; ability to rapidly respond to market demand or opportunity, etc.).

• Netcracker – Ground-Breaking Approach Enables Tier 1 Operator to Deliver High-Value Cloud Business Services
  A leading Tier 1 LATAM operator introduced a cloud service product line as a key strategic differentiator using Netcracker’s Business Cloud which accelerated the provider’s ability to offer differentiating cloud and SDN/NFV business services.

Network Transformation Award

This award recognizes the communications or digital infrastructure service provider which has made the greatest strides in transforming their legacy network from being primarily static, closed, and hardware based infrastructure to a flexible, highly virtualized, cloud ready, software driven and open network, which is dynamic, using latest innovative and disruptive technologies and can respond quickly to the demands of a data-intensive digital business.

• Telstra – NaaS, Opening the Network for Business!
  The (NaaS) platform is an evolution of Telstra’s network architecture – simplifying the Networks-IT interface; speeding up delivery of innovative products/offers; and making it easier, faster and more secure for partners/customers to connect and leverage the operator’s network.

Digital Service Innovator of the Year

This award is made to the company or organization which has made the most significant and innovative contribution to advancing the digital revolution in society with a new product or service.

• Orange – Orange Money, a Digital Revolution in Africa that Allows Private Individuals Money Exchange
  Orange Money is a service providing instantaneousness, security and traceability of transactions for populations as well for enterprises, governments and administrations.

Open Digital Ecosystem Platform of the Year

The digital business revolution is driving the growth of complex business-to-business (B2B) relationships trading across a complex value fabric of relationships. To support such digital ecosystems, sophisticated platforms for digital business are emerging. This award is given to the company who is shaping the market and driving open approaches to digital ecosystems.

• TELUS – Championing Platform Thinking to Transform the 100-year-old Telco
  The TELUS Digital Platform is an ecosystem of tools, technologies and practices that simplify the path to production, making it easier for teams to deliver value to customers.

Disruptive Innovation Award

This award is made to a start-up or new business venture which has truly innovated and caused disruption in the industry. The winning company would have launched a new product or service that has delivered a measurable benefit for business users or customers and has completely disrupted or caused innovation in the existing marketplace. (The following companies tied for this award.)

• Etiya / Fizz – Virtual Service Provider (network, OSS, and BSS), Went from Concept to Launch in 10 Months
  Etiya provided an end-to-end digital solution that enabled Fizz to build and deliver a completely digital, online customer experience.
• Zeotap – Fuel for Growth
  Zeotap is a global mobile data platform that offers high-quality targeting data coming from exclusive sources such as telecom operators.

Outstanding Customer Centricity Award

This award recognizes the company who has made an outstanding and innovative contribution to significantly improving customer centricity and their customer experience, whether through use of advanced analytics, new products/services or other concepts which have dramatically improved customer service, experience or satisfaction. Applicants must provide evidence of the improvement achieved.

• Whale Cloud/China Telecom – China Telecom New Retail – Digital Transformation for Telecom Boutique
  China Telecom New Retail is a collaborative project between China Telecom and Whale Cloud provides innovative customer experience, increased sales volume (both online and offline) through analytics-driven customer insights, innovative business models and customer services.

CIO of the Year Award

This award is given to a CIO/CTIO, (or equivalent), or other board-level IT executive. The winner will be an individual who has led a significant IT transformation of their business which is delivering tangible results. The individual will have constantly demonstrated superior leadership skills, promoted IT transformation company wide and would have been innovative in their approach.

• Cody Sanford, T-Mobile USA

CTO of the Year Award

This award is given to a CTO/CTIO (or equivalent), or other board-level technology executive. The winner will be an individual who has led a significant network transformation of their business which is delivering tangible results. The individual will have constantly demonstrated superior leadership skills, promoted technological change company wide and would have been innovative in their approach.

• Giovanni Chiarelli, MTN South Africa

Future Digital Leader Award

This award recognizes the extraordinary achievements of an upcoming leader in the digital transformation space. The winner will be an individual who has pioneered significant technology innovation and/or disruption within their company. The individual will have inspired others and been at the forefront of innovation and helped their company use technology to its full protentional as a key driver of business value.

• Ye Ouyang, AsiaInfo

Open API Award

This award recognizes one service provider and one supplier for successfully adopting the widest number of relevant TM Forum Open APIs into their product(s), which has led to increased business agility and operation agility of their customers (measured in terms of improved time-to-market; ability to rapidly respond to market demand or opportunity and ability to work with and onboard third parties easily, etc.).

• DGIT – Telflow built on TM Forum’s Open APIs
• Netcracker – Participation in TM Forum’s Open API initiative to gain unparalleled transformation results

“Congratulations to all of this year’s Excellence Awards winners,” said Nik Willetts, CEO, TM Forum. “These organizations are paving the way to digital transformation across the industry. They represent leaders that are committed to the TM Forum, its member community, and to driving and delivering new and innovative solutions that our independent panel of judges think positively impact the complex digital ecosystem landscape overall.”

Distinguished Fellowship Award

Distinguished Fellows are individuals with a sustained and valuable record of service to the industry and to TM Forum; have shown a commitment to helping advance the principals of the Forum and contributed to our technical excellence, have demonstrated leadership and teamwork, and have a proven track record of achievements and accomplishments.

• Lester Thomas, Chief Systems Architect, Vodafone Group: A key contributor to TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture, Lester was instrumental in its evolution into the ecosystem architecture of the future that we have today. He has also been an advocate for TM Forum’s Open API program and is a key participant and supporter of the Catalyst program. As Chief Systems Architect for Vodafone Group, his practical implementation knowledge about how to devise and design an open architecture and implement and govern an open architecture across a global organization, have made a positive impact on the Forum’s strategic direction.

Distinguished Engineer Award

TM Forum’s Distinguished Engineer award recognizes individuals who have made a sustained, positive impact on the industry through use and implementation of TM Forum’s best practices and standards.  Award recipients have shown strong commitment and leadership in IT engineering and architectural excellence through use of TM Forum’s standards, delivering valuable business outcomes while driving a standards-oriented approach which has positive impact on the supply chain and broader industry.

• Takayuki Nakamura, Manager, NTT Group: Taka actively contributes to the Open API program, ZOOM and the Catalyst program. He works diligently to grow TM Forum’s visibility at NTT Group in Tokyo by coordinating local spec jams and a “TM Forum Day” at the NTT Tokyo facility. As the NTT chair of an ETSI ZSM committee, he assures that TM Forum is considered in other groups’ work, including 3GPP, ETSI NFV and ETSI ZSM. In addition, Taka proactively networks within NTT, and with other companies and TM Forum staff to deepen the understanding of the Forum’s programs and projects across the industry.

“Congratulations to our newest Distinguished Fellow and Distinguished Engineer,” said Willetts. “Lester and Taka have made a positive impact on our member community and the industry at large by driving the adoption of digital best practices using TM Forum’s standards and best practices. Not only do they represent the best of the best amongst our membership base, but they stand out as true leaders at their respective companies.”

–Ends–

About TM Forum

TM Forum is an association of over 850-member companies’ customers across 180 countries. We drive collaboration and collective problem-solving to maximize the business success of communication and digital service providers and their ecosystem of suppliers around the world. Today, our focus is on supporting members as they navigate their unique digital transformation journeys, providing practical and proven assets and tools to accelerate execution and platforms to facilitate collaborative problem solving and innovation. Learn more at www.tmforum.org.

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