2014 ACOMM AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Stuart Lee 2014 Communications Ambassador
Category Awards to Telstra Corporation, Virgin Mobile Australia, Optus,
Next Telecom, Vodafone Hutchison Australia, NetComm Wireless, Gilbert + Tobin,
Skybridge (Australia), and Ericsson Australia.
Sydney, 30 July 2014: The winners of the prestigious 2014 Communications Alliance & CommsDay Awards were announced at the Annual ACOMM Awards Dinner in Sydney. Attended by almost 500 industry leaders, the evening’s keynote address was delivered by Senator the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications.
The individual category awards were taken out by a star-studded line-up of Australian service providers - featuring long-established players and ‘new faces’ – including Telstra Corporation, Optus, Next Telecom, Vodafone Hutchison Australia, Virgin Mobile Australia, NetComm Wireless, Gilbert + Tobin, Skybridge (Australia), and Ericsson Australia
Telstra Group Managing Director, Stuart Lee has been named Australian Communications Ambassador 2014 for sustained and wide-ranging industry leadership, commitment to the betterment of the sector and for his development of future industry leaders.
“The ACOMM Awards represent the pinnacle of achievement for the Australian communications industry and I congratulate all the winners and finalists in the 2014 ACOMMS,” said Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton.
“Excellence in innovation is a pervasive trait in the achievements of the 2014 ACOMM winners.”
“We are seeing ever more clearly the race to differentiate through innovations that harness advanced technology and combine it with inventive thinking to deliver new and valuable capabilities to customers.”
“Our 2014 Communications Ambassador, Stuart Lee has long inspired admiration and respect from colleagues and competitors alike.
“In the words of one of our judges: Stuart has an amazingly impressive and diverse portfolio of career achievements. His enduring passion, innate sense of fair play and commitment to the betterment of the sector and the welfare of consumers make him a very worthy nominee for Ambassador.”
"Australia's telecom sector continues to come up with world-beating innovations and unique home-grown solutions. The ACOMMS awards this year reflect the quality and strength of the industry" said CommsDay founder Grahame Lynch.
The winners of the 2014 ACOMM Awards are:
- Communications Ambassador – Stuart Lee.
- Innovation - Large Company – Vodafone Hutchison Australia for their ‘Red Plan’ that gives customer’s access to all of their plan inclusions while overseas, for an extra $5 a day.
- Innovation - SME – NetComm Wireless for its ‘3G Smart Meter Modules’ that puts the 'smart' in smart meters - optimising any smart meter application, anywhere.
- Services to the Industry, Professional Services –Gilbert + Tobin for their ‘Telco Navigator app’ that brings together more than 400 laws, regulations, codes and regulatory decisions and instruments that govern the telecommunications industry in Australia.
- Best Marketing Initiative – Virgin Mobile Australia for Australia's biggest-ever location-based alternative reality mobile app – ‘Game of Phones’ - that rewarded its ultimate winner with a $50,000 Virgin Mobile holiday voucher.
- Best Mobile Solution – Telstra for their ‘24x7 App’ that allows customers to manage their accounts and services whenever and where ever they want.
- Vendor Innovation - Large – Ericsson for their ‘Smart Meters application’ that combines public operator’s 3G networks, smart meters, and the system integration to provide large scale communications with Smart Meters over public 3G mobile networks.
- Vendor Innovation - Emerging – NetComm Wireless for their ‘Wireless' Light Industrial series’ that provides simple and economical plug-and-play M2M connectivity, allowing any business to remotely manage virtually - any application on any wireless network - worldwide.
- Satellite Provider of the Year Award – Skybridge for their ability to coordinate and deliver in some of the world’s most remote and sensitive locations including remote indigenous communities and for the many positive customer testimonials that sets a major benchmark for the Australian satellite industry.
- Community Contribution – Optus for their ‘Digital Thumbprint’ cyber-wellness program, delivered free to Secondary schools in metropolitan NSW and VIC by world-class facilitators – keeping children safe online.
- Commitment to Customer Service: Corporate / Business – Next Telecom for their state of the art CRM that allows real time monitoring of customer services, enabling immediate action and a workable solution for their customers.
- Commitment to Customer Service: Consumer - Optus for their analytics tool that improves resolution management and response time to customer complaints while utilising the tools complaints data to identify and resolve issues before they become a complaint.
ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS ALLIANCE
Communications Alliance is the primary telecommunications industry body in Australia. Its membership is drawn from a wide cross-section of the communications industry, including carriers, carriage and internet service providers, content providers, search engines, equipment vendors, IT companies, consultants and business groups.
Its vision is to provide a unified voice for the telecommunications industry and to lead it into the next generation of converging networks, technologies and services. The prime mission of Communications Alliance is to promote the growth of the Australian communications industry and the protection of consumer interests by fostering the highest standards of business ethics and behaviour through industry self-governance. For more details about Communications Alliance, see www.commsalliance.com.au.
ABOUT COMMS DAY
Communications Day Australasia is Australia and New Zealand’s most respected source of daily telecom industry news and commentary published under the Decisive Publishing stable. For further information see www.commsday.com
Media information contact:
Kreab Gavin Anderson
Lucy Chamberlain lchamberlain@kreabgavinanderson.com 0402 106 613