TM Forum 2018 Awards Winners - Digital Telco is the theme

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Digital Transformation World, Nice, France, 15 May 2018 – TM Forum, the industry association driving digital transformation through collaboration, today announced the winners of the TM Forum Excellence Awards 2018.

The exemplary achievements of this year’s winners were initially recognized during last night’s Excellence Awards Gala Dinner, which took place at Digital Transformation World, and again during today’s opening keynote session.

The 71 nominees and 51 finalists – which is the most ever in the long history of the Excellence Awards – were judged by a wholly impartial and independent panel of leading industry experts. The 2018 Excellence Award categories and 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.

Reliance Jio Infocomm – Agile OSS for World’s largest Mobile Data Network

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 proactive, flexible and integral part of the business, able to respond quickly to changing business requirements and inspire new capabilities and products.

• China Unicom – IT Digital Transformation Practice of China Unicom

Operational Transformation and Agility Award

This award recognizes the company that 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.).

• MYCOM OSI – MYCOM OSI cloud-native assurance and automation solution (MYCOM OSI Experience Assurance and Analytics™ (EAA))
• Netcracker – Supporting the Trillion Dollar Global Financial Transaction Backbone

Digital Service Innovator of the Year Award

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

• China Mobile – Credit-Digital Telco Big Data Credit Assessment Services

Open Digital Ecosystem Platform of the Year Award

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

• Amdocs / Telstra – Amdocs and Telstra Pave the Way Toward the Softwarization of Networks

Disruptive Innovation Award

This is awarded to a start-up or new business venture which has truly innovated and caused disruption in the industry. The winning company will have launched a new product or service that has delivered a measurable benefit for business users or customers.

• triPica – Cross industry digital BSS leveraging TM Forum data model and Open APIs

Outstanding Customer Centricity Award

This award recognizes the company that has made an outstanding and innovative contribution to significantly improving customer centricity and their customer experience. Finalists will have used advanced analytics, new products/services or other concepts to have dramatically improved customer service, experience or satisfaction.

• UXP Systems – UXP Systems supercharges Liberty Global’s digital business capabilities

Open API Award

This award recognizes the company that has successfully adopted 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).

• BearingPoint – API-enabled Digital Platform Solutions – Delivering business agility to evolve from efficiency to innovation

CIO of the Year Award

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.

• Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO at Bharti Airtel

CTO of the Year Award

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 and innovation in their approach and promoted technological change company-wide.

• Catherine Michel, Chief Technology Officer at Sigma Systems
• Dr. Ibrahim Gedeon, Chief Technology Officer at TELUS“Congratulations to the 2018 Excellence Award winners,” said Nik Willetts, CEO, TM Forum. “This year’s winners feature organizations that are making exceptional progress in enabling digital transformation across our industry. The winners represent our industry’s digital leaders, who are committed not only to TM Forum and its member community, but to driving growth across a wide range of industries in an ever-changing landscape of complex digital ecosystems.”

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.

• George Glass, Chief Systems Architect at BT: George is a leading member of several TM Forum collaboration programs, such as the Open API Program and the Zero-touch Orchestration, Operations and Management (ZOOM) Program, and he has been a consistent contributor to the Internet of Everything (IoE) Steering Group. As Chief Systems Architect at BT George has led the company’s commitment to the Forum’s Open APIs, which has promoted cross-industry connectivity. He also has been a vocal driver and advocate of platform architecture and business models. George’s candid feedback on technical strategy has a continuous positive impact on the Forum’s strategic direction, and his contributions are especially valuable because he provides not only a deep telco perspective but also those of IT and the end user.
• Johan Vandenberghe, Bell Labs Consultant at Nokia: Johan has been an effective and productive team leader in TM Forum’s Collaboration programs for 16 years. He has made key contributions to Frameworx, Next-Generation Network (NGN), the Service Delivery Framework, the Digital Services Reference Architecture (DSRA), the Digital Platform Reference Architecture (DPRA) and the Open Digital Architecture (ODA). His work on the DSRA has been a game-changer – he is the only person who could have successfully synthesized the material from such a wide range of industry experts. Johan is universally respected by his teams and has invested countless hours in distilling years of input from diverse sources.

“Congratulations to the newest members of our very exclusive club – TM Forum Distinguished Fellows – who join a prestigious list of innovators and pioneers,” continued Willetts. “George and Johan have not only shown a sustained and valuable record of impactful service to our industry, but have proven their dedication to the Forum’s member community by driving the adoption of digital industry best practices and contributing to the future success of our industry.”

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 best practices and standards. Award recipients have shown strong commitment and leadership in IT engineering and architectural excellence through use of TM Forum standards, delivering valuable business outcomes while driving a standards-oriented approach which has positive impact on the supply chain and broader industry.

• Campbell McClean, Chief Architect at Deutsche Telekom: For more than a decade, Campbell has used TM Forum Frameworx – notably the Business Process Framework (eTOM), Information Framework (SID) and Application Framework (TAM) – in multi-national service providers as the foundation for successful IT transformation programs and architectural best practice. Through these efforts, using Frameworx as a common language between IT, business and supplier partners, Campbell has successfully led architecture for multiple IT transformation programs internationally, and in the process contributed to ensuring Frameworx expertise is an ‘out of the box’ requirement and skillset with the world’s largest suppliers, with positive impact on the whole industry.

This press release was originally published on TMForum.org