NEOSA/Crains Cleveland Area Knowledge Industry Awards
2003 CAKI Awards Criteria

Knowledge Industry Company of the Year
NEOSA/Crains Award

The winner should be an established local company that can demonstrate past achievements and the potential for continued success. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words

• Provide a brief summary of your company’s strategic business plan including the following information.
  
  • What are your company’s major product/service lines?
  • What niche (industry and size of organization) does your company serve and what primary value do you provide to your customers?
  • Please describe any recent introduction of new or updated services or products, alliances, acquisitions, distribution strategies, etc.
    
• What kind of continued growth do you expect for your company? Please provide a brief summary of your sales and marketing success, including distribution channels/sales success at local, national and international levels and historical growth rates for the past several years.
• Is your company a great place to work? How is creativity nurtured and supported in your company? Describe any training or education programs that your company offers to employees. Please describe any unique features, benefit policies, or programs related to your company’s recruitment process and/or retention programs.
• In what ways is your company a good corporate citizen? Please describe any contributions and/or involvement, such as software industry support, IT education support for secondary/post secondary programs, involvement in charities, projects and government initiatives at the local, state, and national levels.
• What makes your company great? If we were to tour your company, what would we remember most from the tour? What accomplishment in the past year would you say the company’s employees are most proud of and why?
• Feel free to include your company’s promotional materials such as brochure, specification sheet, case studies, reprints, etc.

Most Promising New IT Company
Award Partner – ClevelandClicks

• Provide a brief summary of your company’s strategic business plan including the following information.
  • What is your company’s major product/service line?
  • Does it address a pressing business need?
  • What niche (industry and size of organization) does your company serve and what primary value do you provide to your customers?
  • What makes your product/service unique?
• Provide a brief summary of your sales process and sales channels, including information about your strategic partnerships, if any. Describe a customer success story and include a contact phone number (if possible).
• What kind of growth potential do you expect for your company? How do you plan to continue your initial growth successes…internal cash flow, bank loans (local banks), merger/acquisition, angel funds, venture money?
• Is your company a great place to work? How is creativity nurtured and supported in your company? Describe any training or education programs that your company offers to employees.
• What makes your company great? If we were to tour your company, what would we remember most from the tour? What accomplishment in the past year would you say the company’s employees are most proud of and why?

Feel free to include your company’s promotional materials such as brochure, specification sheet, case studies, reprints, etc.

Best World Wide Web Site
Award Partner – Association of Internet Professionals

The winner should be a world-class World Wide Website that either represents a local company/organization's website or a website for a non-local company that was locally developed. Web sites will be evaluated on usability, content, innovation, creativity and ease of navigation. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

• Does the website succeed in fulfilling its required function?
• Does the website provide any back office or process automation functions –
  please describe briefly.
• Considering how quickly web technology and information changes, how simple is it for the Webmaster or administrator to change content, add new functions and/or improve the website?
• Why is your site better than any other site in your industry? Outside your industry? Why does your company deserve this award?
• How do you measure the success of your website?
• How do you plan on improving your website? What are you goals? When?

Feel free to include your company's promotional materials such as brochure, specification sheet, case studies, reprints, etc.

Best IT Training Program
Award Partner – Greater Cleveland PC Users Group

The winner should be a company/organization that has successfully developed and delivered one or more IT training programs. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

• Please describe your company/organization’s training programs. How many years have you been in operation?
• Provide a profile of your most popular IT training program(s). Have you seen any change in this profile the last few years?
• Do you use the latest tools and techniques to teach IT courses?
• Tell us about your ability to tailor IT programs for specific industry needs.
• Describe any partnerships with other businesses and/or schools
• Do you have any great Success stories?
• Can you describe any business gains as a result of one or more of your training programs?
  

Feel free to include your company’s promotional materials such as brochure, specification sheet, case studies, reprints, etc.

Best IT Internship Program
Award Partner – Northcoast Consortium for Career Advancement (NCCA)

The winner should be a company or organization that has developed a successful internship program and demonstrates intern employment placement success. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

Please provide a brief description of your company’s internship program. Do you participate in any business/school partnerships in your program?

• Provide a profile of your intern population, i.e. number of interns, what school/program they are from, etc.
• How do you ensure that the internship is a valuable learning experience for students?
  • Describe the technology resources available to the students
  • What feedback mechanisms do you have in place to ensure a quality experience for students (and your co-workers)?
• What exposure and/or opportunities does the company provide to students to encourage the students to consider careers in the IT industry? Describe the various employment opportunities available to the students both during this program and upon graduation. How are these opportunities communicated to the students?
• What accomplishment (of your internship program) would you say the company is most proud of and why?
  

Feel free to include your company’s promotional materials such as brochure, specification sheet, case studies, reprints, etc.

Best Software Product
NEOSA/Crains Award

The winner will be a local company that has designed, developed and produced a software package and has shown success in addressing an industry need or market niche with this product. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

• Please give a brief description of the software. What makes this product unique?
  
• Does it address a pressing business need? To what niche (industry and size of organization) is it targeted and what are the benefits to the customer?
• How is the product delivered to the customer…CD, download, ASP model? Is customization required for installation? If yes, please explain. Is special hardware or other equipment required in order to use the software?
• Provide a brief summary of your sales process and sales channels.
  • Use and location of direct sales vs. resellers/distributors
  • Strategic partnerships, if any
  • Percentage of US and non-US sales revenue
  • License price of your product and how many do you sell per year?
• Describe two (2) customer success stories and include contact phone numbers (if possible).
• What kind of growth potential do you expect for this product? How will further product development is funded…internal cash flow, bank loans (local banks), merger/acquisition, angel funds, venture money? What is the % of revenue generated by license fees, installation fees (training, customization) ongoing support such as upgrades and “helpdesk” fees?
  

Best IT Implementation Award (Company with more than 20 employees)
Award Partner – CAMP, Inc.

The winner should be a company or organization with MORE THAN 20 employees that demonstrates a successful implementation of an IT application or piece of technology. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

• Please give a brief description of the project.
  
• How does this application or technology help make things better for you, your company and/or your customers?
• Were all of the project deliverables completed as defined?
  • From a user/customer perspective?
  • From an internal IT department perspective?
• Is the application or piece of technology "easy" to use?
  • It must be understandable, intuitive for the intended audience and well documented.
  • Does it perform (response time) within acceptable timeframes?
• Is it maintainable? When it needs to be changed, can it be done in a reasonable time? Is it manageable within the IT department?
• Was it completed on time and within budget?
  • On time means based on agreed-to schedules which can be revised from time to time.
  • Within budget means that the cost was within an acceptable overrun threshold which can be up
    to 20% over depending on the size of the budget/project.
• Has the project meet the ROI expectations? You may include other value measures, if charted.
  

Best IT Implementation Award (Company with fewer than 20 employees)
Award Partner – COSE (The Council of Smaller Enterprises)

The winner should be a company or organization with FEWER THAN 20 employees that demonstrates a successful implementation of an IT application or piece of technology. Applicants are asked to address each of the following topics, limiting the response under each bullet to 250 words.

Please give a brief description of the project.

• How does this application or technology help make things better for you, your company and/or your customers?
• Please describe examples of cost savings, productivity increases, and/or expanded markets as a result of the technology.
• Is the application or piece of technology "easy" to use? Is it understandable, intuitive for your employees and well documented?
• Is it maintainable? Can it be managed and maintained by your current staff?
• Was it completed on time and within budget?
  • On time means based on agreed-to schedules which can be revised from time to time.
  • Within budget means that the cost was within an acceptable overrun threshold which can be up to 20% over depending on the size of the budget/project.
• Has the success with this project encouraged you to consider another technology project? If so, please elaborate.