Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in Connectivity

The enterprise pursuit of connectedness is only growing more complex as organizations embrace a multipronged strategy to increase business and operational agility. This award recognizes organizations that has transformed with a modernized network operations strategy, staffing, and skills for the cloud-first world, highlighting improvements in the end goal of operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.

The winner of this category must demonstrate at least one of the following:

• Performance and/or operational benefits from solutions (i.e. using connectivity technologies like SDWAN/SASE, 5G, virtual private networks, satellite, IoT, and mobility) that improve human-human and human-machine interactions.
• A scalable, secure network environment that allows access anytime, anywhere and delivers pervasive experiences using connectivity and/or networking solutions that provide for employees, customers, and partners.
• A connected environment that is intelligent, dynamic, and secure, while being independent of a physical place or specific time of day, enabling access to corporate resources and supporting collaboration with an agile and dynamic approach.
• A pervasive and reliable connectivity strategy that allows the enterprise to maintain business operations in accordance with SLAs. This includes resiliency in light of disruptive events including cyberattacks, pandemics, and natural disasters.

Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in Digitally-Enabled Ecosystem

Digitally enabled ecosystems are interconnected, intelligent, and adaptive, leveraging collaboration with partners to drive a shared strategy and common goals. Organizations that embrace a networked approach—seamlessly integrating physical and digital elements—are positioned to create exceptional customer experiences and drive industry-wide innovation. Much like a biological ecosystem that evolves in response to external pressures, the most advanced digitally enabled ecosystems dynamically adapt to market changes, leveraging technology and partnerships to optimize operations, enhance service delivery, and anticipate future needs.

This award recognizes an organization that exemplifies the highest level of digital ecosystem maturity, utilizing platforms, data intelligence, and industry cloud solutions to create value for all participants. By seamlessly orchestrating customer experiences and complementing internal data with external intelligence, the winner in this category demonstrates a pioneering approach to the digital economy.

The winner of this category must demonstrate at least one of the following:

• Seamless integration of physical and digital approaches to create a unified customer experience.
• Utilization of cognitive and AI-driven systems to analyze ecosystem interactions, predict customer needs, and either autonomously or under expert supervision determine the next best product or service action within the network.
• Implementation of collaborative platforms that enable efficient communication and coordination across the ecosystem.
• Ability to develop and deliver enhanced capabilities, including personalized products, services, and experiences, by leveraging the ecosystem’s collective intelligence, shared data, and collaborative technological frameworks.
• Optimization of resources and capabilities across the ecosystem to improve efficiency and scale.
• Real-time decision support and advanced data analytics to improve visibility, decision-making, and ecosystem performance, leveraging shared intelligence across the network to enhance predictive accuracy and collaborative innovation.

The organization must also demonstrate that their digitally enabled ecosystem operates across at least two of the following shared initiatives:

• Seamless integration of physical and digital approaches to create a unified customer experience.
• Utilization of cognitive and AI-driven systems to analyze ecosystem interactions, predict customer needs, and either autonomously or under expert supervision determine the next best product or service action within the network.
• Implementation of collaborative platforms that enable efficient communication and coordination across the ecosystem.
• Ability to develop and deliver enhanced capabilities, including personalized products, services, and experiences, by leveraging the ecosystem’s collective intelligence, shared data, and collaborative technological frameworks.
• Optimization of resources and capabilities across the ecosystem to improve efficiency and scale.
• Real-time decision support and advanced data analytics to improve visibility, decision-making, and ecosystem performance, leveraging shared intelligence across the network to enhance predictive accuracy and collaborative innovation.

Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in Digital Innovation

This award recognizes that the modern enterprise must transform itself from a software consumer into a large-scale software innovator. A winning organization shows that a project or initiative can source, augment, develop and/or distribute software IP (intellectual property) that delivers differentiation, disrupts the market through external products or services, or has significant positive impact on internal operations.

IDC’s Digital Innovation framework defines the following four areas that are interconnected. To qualify, entrants must demonstrate strategic decision making as part of their project in at least two of these four areas:

• Planning. The nominated project is tied to and driven by business goals from the earliest ad-hoc stages
• Sourcing. Rather than comprising solely top-to-bottom internally created resources, the nominated project relies also on external code, libraries, apps, algorithms, microservices, platforms and so on.
• Development. The nominated project makes use of agile and secure, full-cycle DevOps practices and methodologies, allowing for rapid release and pivoting based on market intelligence and customer/user feedback
• Distribution. The nominated project makes full use of third-party development delivery ecosystems (e.g. downloads or API access from the organization’s website would constitute distribution). Please note that distribution can also be internal only (i.e. first party distribution) where it is used in your own products/services and/or business processes.

Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in Security and Trust

This award recognizes an organization that exemplifies the ability to maintain and build trust amid the evolving needs of its customers. Historically, the role of IT in fostering trust has centered on preventing cyberattacks and data breaches, while ensuring regulatory compliance. However, as the age of digital transformation unfolds, trust has expanded to encompass initiatives that prioritize exceptional customer experiences, empathy at scale, enterprise and ecosystem intelligence, smart and autonomous devices, and more. These efforts bring both new opportunities and challenges in managing trust.

The winner of this category must demonstrate the ability to design and execute strategies that build and sustain trust through at least one of the following:

• Effective risk assessment and management (enhancing visibility and preparedness)
• Regulatory compliance to ensure adherence to industry standards and laws
• Robust security management to protect stakeholders’ interests
• Advocacy for privacy to respect and safeguard personal data
• Commitment to ethics and social responsibility, fostering goodwill and accountability
• Transparency and good governance, ensuring openness and integrity in operations

Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in Sustainability

This award recognizes the organization that demonstrates the commitment to embed sustainability within the business. This organization aims to address sustainability in a holistic manner, where the goal is for sustainability to become an integral part of the overall business strategy as its underlying foundation. IDC believes that purpose-driven sustainability can deliver long-term impact to any organization and its strategy, operations, employees, customers, and ultimately, bring new innovations into the market it serves.

The winner of this category must demonstrate the following:

• Early successes in its sustainability initiatives, fostering greater commitment to a purpose-driven strategy
• Commitment to embed sustainability goals in enterprise wide business objectives and solve society’s ‘wicked’ problems faced by organizations in the Asia/Pacific region through long-term, sustainable innovation
• Ability to derive business value from current and future investments supporting sustainability goals
• Ability to integrate digital transformation and other technology investments with sustainability goals, setting the foundation for sustainable innovation

Spotlight Awards – ‘Best in X‘
Best in New Ways of Work

This award recognizes the future enterprise that is able to rethink the way works get done. The Future of Work is a fundamental shift in the work model to one that fosters human-machine collaboration, enables new skills and worker experiences, and supports a secure location and device agnostic virtual workspace and reimagined physical workplace. Work transformation is critical for effectively scaling digital transformation initiatives.

The winner of this category needs to demonstrate capability in at least one of the following areas:

• Digital Worker technologies: The work initiative might emphasize the adoption of” digital worker” technologies (i.e. AI, robotics, process automation, AR/VR), fostering human-machine collaboration.
• Human-Machine Collaboration Tools: The work initiative might demonstrate AI-driven tools that enhance productivity by automating routine tasks, providing decision support, and enabling interactive human-AI teamwork. Systems should also include feedback loops for workers to refine AI output.
• Secure Virtual Workspaces: The work initiative might demonstrate robust cybersecurity measures should protect sensitive data across devices and locations. This includes secure access protocols, encryption, and compliance with privacy regulations to ensure a safe virtual environment.
• Extensive Customization: It might emphasize personalization of both virtual and physical workspaces to meet individual worker needs, such as ergonomic setups, tailored software interfaces, or team-specific collaboration zones.
• Upskilling Opportunities: The model might prioritize reskilling workers to collaborate effectively with AI systems, emphasizing digital fluency, critical thinking, and adaptability to emerging technologies.
• Enhanced Team Dynamics: The initiative might emphasize how Physical and virtual spaces are designed to foster collaboration through tools that facilitate communication, brainstorming, and teamwork. This includes features like VR meeting rooms or adaptable office layouts for group interactions
• Innovation Culture: The initiative might emphasize how a changed work culture encourages continuous innovation and a new type of organizational agility; has an outcome-focused leadership style and culture that shows empathy, empowerment, frictionless engagement, and speed; deploys digital technology to offer upskilling/reskilling and career development opportunities to all employees.
• Knowledge Management: The initiative might describe a work initiative that offers all workers secure access to required corporate resources (data, applications, co-workers) and supports collaboration with trust at the core. Corporate facilities leverage digital technology to foster collaboration across physical and digital boundaries and create a safe and healthy environment.