Editor

Channel Asia is proud to announce winners of the Innovation Awards in 2021, featuring a leading and diverse line-up of partners, vendors, distributors and individuals across Southeast Asia. Delivered via a virtual awards ceremony, highlights of yet another challenging and turbulent 12 months were played out on the grandest regional stage, bringing the entire ecosystem together under the Channel Asia roof. The third running of the awards set the stage for three Channel Asia Hall of Fame inductees; Vicki Batka, Wilson Ho and Chong-Win Lee. Representing the entire ASEAN ecosystem, more than 220 finalists (including 65+ individuals) were honoured from a pool of over 90 organisations and more than 300 nominations, spanning partner, start-up, telco, vendor and distributor businesses. This marked a significant expansion in reach, support and market appeal, outpacing a best effort of over 200 finalists in 2020 to position Innovation Awards as the leading technology awards program for customer innovation and ecosystem excellence in the ASEAN channel. Reflective of a diverse technology network, more than 55 partners and start-ups were represented and ranged from large-scale multinational consultancy firms to emerging start-ups, alongside leading system integrators, managed service providers and solution consultants, plus cloud specialists, independent software vendors, boutique agencies and application developers. This is in addition to over 30 channel-centric vendors and telecommunications providers, plus six supply chain experts in distribution. Within this standout group, finalists, highly commended and winners were located across the entire region, spanning Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong. Aligned to the Channel Asia approach of representing established and emerging technology providers in equal measure, Innovation Awards in 2021 stands tall as the leading forum for setting the industry benchmark for ecosystem excellence across ASEAN. “Congratulations to our finalists, highly commended and winners in 2021,” said Cherry Yumul, vice president of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation at IDG. “Following yet another challenging 12 months, to display such inspiring examples of innovation balanced with stoic levels of resilience is testament to the strength of the ecosystem in ASEAN. “We are proud to provide a platform upon which market-leading partners, vendors, distributors and individuals can be recognised -- kudos to such a thriving channel community.” In 2021, Innovation Awards honoured the channel across eight categories, spanning Partner Innovation, Tech Innovation, ASEAN-wide Innovation, Start-up Innovation, Personal Innovation, Vendor Innovation, Distributor Innovation and Hall of Fame. In streamlining the program, increased focus was placed on the pace-setters of the local market, those revving up the innovation engine and powering ahead in the delivery of transformative solutions and services. Finalists were selected by an executive judging panel of business leaders from partner, vendor and distributor organisations. In addition to delivering a market-leading virtual celebration, Innovation Awards also outlined key customer insights through dedicated end-user sessions spanning: Introducing the Revenue Generating CIO in ASEAN; Prevailing during the purchasing process: How to avoid customer abandonment and ASEAN CIOs on… Collaboration, Communication & Culture. Introducing the Revenue Generating CIO in ASEAN: This session outlined the rise of the revenue generating CIO across ASEAN, and the implications on innovation agendas in the enterprise. Prevailing during the purchasing process -- How to avoid customer abandonment: This session documented the leading factors causing customers to abandon a vendor or partner during the purchasing process, detailing the marketing tactics which resonate most post-pandemic. CIOs on… Collaboration, Communication & Culture: In this session, market-leading CIOs across ASEAN demonstrated executive best practice in relation to Collaboration, Communication and Culture. Channel Asia congratulates all finalists, highly commended and winners and thanks all organisations and individuals for taking the time to submit nominations. PARTNER INNOVATION Partner Innovation recognises customer innovation and excellence across the key market segments of Enterprise, Mid-Market and SMB, in addition to pioneering technology specialists and collaborative providers. ENTERPRISE: Finalists: Blazeclan Technologies. Cloud Comrade. Crayon. Exigo Tech. FPT Telecom. Nera (Philippines) ViBiCloud. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) Techolution. TechX. Highly Commended: Blazeclan Technologies Winner: Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) MII wins this award in recognition of a standout 12 months delivering enterprise-grade solutions and services across cloud, digital transformation big data, security, hybrid IT infrastructure and business applications in Indonesia. One such example is the deployment of KOMI -- a digital banking solution built in collaboration with Red Hat and Software AG to enhance customer experience levels by leveraging data analytics across financial services. MII was also selected by Bank BRI to accelerate digital adoption through a flexible single integration platform, digitising micro-finance through a modernised application suite designed to connect back-end systems to increase services time delivery. MID-MARKET: Finalists: Cloud Comrade. FPT Software. ISS Consulting. Netpluz Asia. NTT Data Business Solutions. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) Searce. Techolution. Telstra Purple. Winner: Telstra Purple Telstra Purple wins this award for supporting Singapore-based X-Press Feeders -- one of the largest container shipping groups in the world -- in the deployment of a cloud-based calling platform to embrace a modern workplace across multiple locations globally. In overhauling corporate telephony services, the business maximised the potential of Telstra Calling for Microsoft Teams to create a more connected and productive workforce, in addition to enhancing employee satisfaction levels through an integrated client experience. SMB: Finalists: Cloud Comrade. Logicalis. Netpluz Asia. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) Winner: Cloud Comrade Cloud Comrade wins this award in recognition of migrating the core applications of Detrack Systems - a Singapore-based real-time vehicle tracking solution -- to Amazon Web Services during an eight-week project. In migrating back-end processes to AWS Fargate -- a serverless, pay-as-you-go compute engine- Cloud Comrade eliminated the need to manage servers or clusters, helping the business respond to rapid growth and meet new market demands through a stable and scalable cloud platform. THINK DIFFERENTLY: Finalists: Customer Capital Consulting. Delaware Consulting. DXC Technology. NTT Data Business Solutions. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) Searce. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Highly Commended: DXC Technology Winner: Customer Capital Consulting Customer Capital Consulting wins this award for leveraging bleeding-edge Microsoft solutions to improve citizen experiences in partnership with the Singapore Government. Harnessing the power of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Customer Capital Consulting deployed a modern service management solution to improve internal approval processes while implementing a 360-degree view of service environment capabilities -- helping more than 3000 agency employees overcome the constraints of legacy systems in the process. COLLABORATION: Finalists: FPT Software. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) Winner: Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII) MII wins this award following a local collaboration with Salesforce and 3 Dolphins -- a Jakarta-based AI chatbot solution -- to overhaul the student on-boarding process in higher education. Armed by Salesforce Marketing and Sales Cloud, MII combined expertise with 3 Dolphins to create a digitised first layer of communication between students and the campus -- allowing 24-hour customer service while also providing a 360-degree view of frequent student requirements. TECH INNOVATION Tech Innovation recognises partners leveraging established and emerging solutions to enhance customer innovation levels, underpinned by deep levels of expertise and specialist services. CLOUD: Finalists: AsiaPac Technology. Blazeclan Technologies. Cloud4C. Cloud Kinetics. Crayon. FPT Telecom. Logicalis. Searce. Sourced Group. Stratpoint Technologies. Techolution. Telstra Purple. Winner: AsiaPac Technology AsiaPac Technology wins this award in recognition of providing CGS-CIMB Securities (CGS) with first-mover advantage in the financial services through the deployment of VMware Cloud on AWS technologies in Singapore. Following a comprehensive IT infrastructure assessment, the M1 subsidiary leveraged VMware Cloud Discovery to migrate CGS at speed and scale -- also implementing VMware vRealize Operations to manage IT operations across multiple hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The migration has helped CGS avoid allocating 50 per cent of overall IT budget to ageing infrastructure maintenance, while allowing the business to respond to increased regulatory requirements around data control. Winner: Cloud Kinetics Cloud Kinetics wins this award for building a market-leading cloud-centric managed service provider (MSP) spanning Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and beyond ASEAN -- underpinned by over 70 per cent of a 325-strong team housing advanced certification in cloud migration and integration. Such expertise was deployed by Sony Pictures Networks to help scale-up OTT -- over-the-top -- platform capabilities to serve several million customers across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Leveraging Cloud Kinetics’ architectural expertise, Sony Pictures leveraged the power of Amazon Web Services to roll-out a modernised content delivery network built to deliver maximum scalability and...

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