Looking for Innovators: Saugatuck’s Beacon Awards for Business Innovation

One interesting and fun aspect of the upcoming 2012 Cloud Business Summit event in NYC is the debut of Saugatuck’s Beacon Awards for business innovation. More information on the Awards is available on the Cloud Business Summit site, but we want to take some time and space here to introduce and explain the Awards, the nomination process, and the Award criteria.

The Beacon Awards are about the use of technologies in innovative ways to improve, drive, or create business in four areas of business and IT:

Customer Engagement / Satisfaction
Products / Solutions
Markets / Partnering
Business Models / Realizing Revenue

The types of innovation envisioned for the Awards are significant improvements or changes in how a firm operates, the types of markets or lines of business that it is in, or how a firm has applied different ways of thinking, management, and use of technologies to create new offerings, markets, ways of doing business, or entirely new businesses.

Firms of any type may nominate themselves, customers, or partners, as long as they are using those technologies in new and innovative ways to improve, change, or create new business or new ways of doing business.

Some guidelines to help in the nominating process include the following:

What was the opportunity envisioned by the firm that was beyond the firm’s operational or technological capabilities? What was the opportunity, change, improvement or problem that needed to be addressed?
Why was this important to the firm under consideration – e.g., what was being lost, or what was to be gained?
What was done that was innovative in terms of development or use of technology to help solve the problem or improve the situation? Were any of the “big four” disruptive technologies – Cloud, mobility, social/collaboration, and/or analytics – used to enable the change, solve the problem, or create the opportunity?
How was this innovative: e.g., is it a previously unknown use or application of technology for this type of business; is it a new type of business for the firm; did it create a new area of opportunity that was pursued;
What were the results? What was the change/improvement/resolution; how was this measured or demonstrated?
What, if anything, is next? Are there any plans to build on or extend what was learned into new or different areas of the business?

Deadline for the submission of nominations is September 15, 2012. Interested parties can email Saugatuck head of research Bruce Guptill or call him directly at 1 508 495 5445.

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Bruce Guptill

Most research firms can explain what happened; some can explain what is happening. Saugatuck Technology excels at understanding both in order to explain what else is likely to occur, and to guide its clients toward the actions that deliver them the greatest business value while enabling the safest business path.
To accomplish this, and to continually improve the value of Saugatuck’s work to clients in a Cloud-obscured marketplace, Saugatuck SVP and Head of Research Bruce Guptill pushes his team to continually re-examine and re-invent the company’s research programs to focus more on the costs, benefits, effects, and value of an ever-changing mix of technologies and providers in different markets.
Guptill’s own technology and business background laid a solid foundation for such a flexible, yet stable, approach to IT research value for clients. His technology research work includes mobility, collaborative IT, telecom, data networking, web commerce, and electronic marketplaces; his research work for enterprise IT and business clients includes return on IT investment, total cost of IT ownership, and business planning for IT. His research and guidance on vendor channel management, market identification and development, and buyer behavior analysis has enabled hundreds of established and startup IT providers to find, enter, and profit from new and traditional markets, while helping to guide user enterprise leaders toward optimal IT procurement and vendor management.
Guptill’s research background includes several years as a VP and research director with Gartner, senior positions with TeleChoice and Robert Frances Group, and editorial work within the IDG companies, including four years as a writer and editor with NetworkWorld. His marketing business focus was honed as VP of marketing for firms ranging from custom development providers to non-IT firms in aviation and other industries. His sales and channel experience started by traveling with a sample bag, then working for IT VARs, then advising telecom and wireless carriers on partner choices, to developing partner programs for traditional and Cloud-based software development firms and ISVs.
Guptill holds an MBA in marketing and finance, and a BA in the psychology and business of mass media communication. He is licensed to fly airplanes, drive boats, and sell houses; he is also a certified baseball coach, serves on the boards of regional civic groups, and is a serial home renovator. Married with three children, Guptill resides on Cape Cod in southeastern Massachusetts, and is a lifelong fan of the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and the University of Connecticut Huskies.

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