SSON Announces 2013 Excellence Awards Winners at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week in Orlando

ORLANDO, March 12, 2013 /CNW/ - The Shared Services & Outsourcing Network [http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssonetwork.com%2F&esheet=6727115&lan=en-US&anchor=The+Shared+Services+%26+Outsourcing+Network+%28SSON%29&index=1&md5=78666dc4e5e0d856f735c36e080b8f2b ] this week announced the winners of the 2013 Excellence Awards for the North American region, sponsored by ISG.

Presented during the 17th Annual North American Shared Services & Outsourcing Week [http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssoweek.com%2FEvent.aspx%3Fid%3D415750%26utm_campaign%3Diq_eventlist%26utm_medium%3Diq_partner%26utm_source%3Dssonetwork.com%26utm_content%3Dtext%26utm_term%3Deventpage%26mac%3DSSON_ContentQ409&esheet=6727115&lan=en-US&anchor=11th+Annual+European+Shared+Services+%26+Outsourcing+Week+Conference&index=2&md5=d4c2a886af4022c6392b82215d69acfb ] in Orlando, these awards recognize organizations that demonstrated best practices while generating measurable results in the core competencies of SSO.

Winners & Runner-ups:

Excellence in People & Communication   
Winner:  Levi Strauss   
Runner Up: Unisys

Judges' comments: "What impressed us about Levi Strauss's application was that the company was very specific about steps taken and it was easy to see the differentiators as a result. The learning and development program that was established internally, and its focus on skills enhancement, have resulted in significant successes."

Excellence in Value Creation   
Winner: Intel   
Runner Up: AOL

Judges' comments: We are looking for value-add: an additional contribution that had not existed before. Intel took on a massive HR project, bringing 900 processes into the center and applying best learnings to them. What really stood out was while metrics were important they also considered "humanistics". In creating value for the HR group, significant value has been created for Intel itself!"

Excellence in Improvement & Innovation   
Winner : Commonwealth of Pennsylvania   
Runner Up: Bimbo S.A. de C.V.

Judges' comments: "Hard cost savings are always important, but so is the level of quality, control, cost avoidance, risk management, and project discipline - as well as cross functional and customer impacts. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, applied standardization, centralization and ownership of the employee on-boarding process using web-based technology, achieved significant savings and quality improvements."

Excellence in Culture Creation   
Winner: SAP Americas, Inc.   
Runner Up: U.S. Department of the Interior

Judges' comments: "SAP impressed through its dedication to getting the shared services team to interact with its customers more effectively. Due to the recession, the SAP team found itself with a significant number of MBAs in entry-level positions. To maximize this untapped potential, leadership and mentoring programs were made available which are supporting career evolutions."

Excellence in Customer Services   
Winner: SAP Americas, Inc.   
Runner Up: U.S. Department of the Interior

Judges' comments: "Customers are key, and the team from SAP impressed with the excellence of its processes, clearly laying out their goals and tactics to achieving customer satisfaction. They also managed to reduce the costs of meeting customers' needs by a limiting any unnecessary resources."

The People's Choice Award for Personal Contribution to the Industry (North America) was presented to Rick Arpin [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rick-arpin/1/524/499 ], Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller at MGM Resorts.

Rick said: "It's fine to have ideas, but there's a team of people in Las Vegas that implements really well and that is very dedicated to this cause. I am sharing this award with them."

The North American SSON Excellence Awards are announced annually, at the flagship event held in the Spring. For more information, please visit http://www.ssonetwork.com [http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssonetwork.com&esheet=6727115&lan=en-US&anchor=www.ssonetwork.com&index=3&md5=4f55dbaf3b964d5ee8a8168d637d20e5 ] or http://www.ssoweek.com/awards.

SOURCE: Shared Services & Outsourcing Network

For further information:

Emma Parker [phone], [e-mail]