Ten Diamond Awards for the ten most interesting innovations and projects in business services

Prague, November 10, 2023 (PROTEXT) – Once again this year, the ABSL Association honored the companies that in the past year contributed the most to the development of the field of business and IT services in the Czech Republic and, thanks to innovative projects, raised the standard of services provided, customer experience, talent development or the working environment. The winning projects were selected by a twelve-member independent expert jury from nearly seven dozen nominations in seven categories. The award, named ABSL Diamonds, was received by the winners during the gala evening on the occasion of the 10th annual ABSL conference.

“This year was extraordinary for two reasons. The first was the record number of registered projects, the second was the extraordinary level of their creativity, innovation and benefits.” says Jonathan Appleton, Director of the ABSL Association, adding: “This is also why we decided to award the diamond award not to seven, but to ten companies, and thus celebrate the 10th anniversary of our association at the same time. We congratulate all the winners and believe that their efforts will motivate and inspire not only our industry, but also companies and organizations across all sectors.”

In the category Business Innovation (Best Innovation) two projects were awarded. The first diamond goes to the company Conectart, which introduced several innovations based on artificial intelligence in the past year. For example, with the help of a newly developed chatbot and voicebot, this company was able to streamline the recruitment of applicants and their on-boarding, which resulted in savings of up to 220 hours of related human labor per month.

The company received the second diamond award in this category Microsoft for the AskHR Virtual Assistant (AVA), which represents a significant innovation in how the HR Service center provides support to Microsoft employees with questions related to the administration of their employment cycle. HR teams at Microsoft worldwide process up to 1 million employee inquiries per year. The AVA system takes over a significant part. The European HR Service Delivery Center based in Prague played an important role in orchestrating the implementation of the AVA system.

In the category Education (Best project in the field of education) the company won the award EPAM for the Upskill Me program, which was created specifically to help people who lost their jobs as a result of the war in Ukraine. The initiative enabled these people to acquire new knowledge and skills and thus change their profession. The program was designed so that participants gradually immerse themselves in the field of IT and build their technical knowledge. More than 7,000 participants have registered for the program.

In the category Value Creation (Best Added Value) the company won the award Zebra Technologies CZ for the Innovation App, which serves to create a global innovation center that enables faster and easier implementation of good ideas in an efficient and properly managed manner. Connecting individual ideas and developers reduced information silos and isolated efforts and globalized the approach to innovation. The application currently contains more than 400 suggestions for increasing financial efficiency, 40% of which have already been implemented as new solutions, resulting in an annual saving of more than 12,000 man hours.

In the category Employer Branding and People Engagement the company succeeded ExxonMobil, which decided to use the employees themselves as ambassadors of their employer brand. Fully 120 employees lent their faces to the outdoor campaign with the main slogan “Be one of us” and 200 of them also participated in the “Branding Fridays” event in sharing posts from their working life in the office on their social networks. An important part of the program was the three-day “Let’s race together” event, the aim of which was to show employees ExxonMobil’s close relationship with motor sports and bring them closer to its products, partnerships and brands. Therefore, two racing simulators were placed in the reception of the company’s Prague offices, a Red Bull f1 on the Monza track and a Porsche GT on the Le Mans track, on which employees and their family members could compete and win interesting prizes.

The company deserved the second diamond in this category KBC Global Services, which as part of its campaign focused on dispelling myths about working in a multinational company. In the campaign, which took place on social networks and on advertising spaces in Brno, she refuted the most common prejudices that people have associated with working in a large company – that it is only an administrative position, that people will be stunted in them and will not have time for their hobbies or that work is just about making money. The campaign was seen by almost 2 million people on social networks and its effect was enormous – the number of responses to the advertised jobs increased by a full 99%, and even by more than 200% at the peak of the campaign.

In the category ESG Towards Resilience (Best ESG Project) the company won Pure Storage, for which sustainability is a fundamental corporate value and takes it into account not only in the design of its products and solutions, but also in its internal processes. Pure Storage storage arrays hold more data in a smaller footprint than traditional storage products. This means they use much less energy and reduce emissions associated with energy production by up to 85% compared to competing products. It is this aspect that is gaining importance in connection with the dramatic increase in unstructured data. The development center of the company, based in Prague, also plays a significant role in the development of these sustainable products and solutions.

In the category Customer Initiative (Best Customer Project) the company deserved the award ABInBev for a project aimed at end consumers, i.e. customers buying the products of this brewing group. The award-winning initiative, which was implemented at the company’s Prague center, focused on innovative ways of handling consumer feedback, which opens up completely new possibilities for launching new products, and enables rapid revenue growth in all European markets for both ABInBev and its partners and corporate customers. Thanks to this project, it was possible to achieve record sales worth over a million euros.

In the category Innovative Workplace and Remote Working (Innovative workplace and remote work strategy) she won the prize Czechoslovak commercial bank as Shared Services&Operations for a complex project enabling remote work of employees and the creation of a paperless office in the area of ​​personnel and payroll. The complex solution significantly reduces the carbon footprint (250,000+ paperless documents per year) and significantly increases comfort for both users and processors.

The second company awarded in this category was the company Sii Czech Republic for an office redesign project to support the company’s current and future expansion and create a cohesive environment for the company where most employees spend a lot of time with clients and not in their own company office. One of the basic goals of the project was to support company culture.