Microsoft recognizes outstanding contributions by suppliers

REDMOND, Wash., May 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced the recipients of the 2013 Microsoft Preferred Supplier Program (MPSP) Excellence Awards. The MPSP Excellence Awards recognize superior performance, exemplary service and innovation by suppliers that are members of the Microsoft Preferred Supplier Program. The purpose of MPSP is to build long-term relationships with a select group of strategic suppliers that create long-term value for Microsoft.

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Winners of the 2013 MPSP Excellence Awards were nominated by employees of Microsoft in various business units, MPSP suppliers, and Microsoft Procurement Professionals. An extensive panel of Microsoft employees selected all final awardees, and award winners were based on excellence in quality, value, service and innovation. Winners were announced during the 11th Annual MPSP Global Summit on Microsoft's main corporate campus in Redmond, Wash.

"I am very excited and honored to recognize this year's winners for their outstanding performance. In a historic product release year for Microsoft that focused on significant change for Microsoft's Preferred Supplier Program including our Excellence Awards, these suppliers stood above a strong field of nominees and are well-deserving of this recognition," said Mike Simms, general manager and chief procurement officer at Microsoft.

Winners were announced in six categories: Brand Value, Cost Management, Innovation, Market Agility, Reduced Risk and Supplier of the Year.

Metia — recipient of the 2013 Brand Value Award

Metia has a substantial history of working closely with Microsoft to design and deliver successful digital projects, including websites, data solutions and mission-critical digital marketing infrastructures. Metia demonstrated strong Microsoft brand awareness through its Business Hub project, which achieved significant customer satisfaction and increased trust in the Microsoft brand through the Windows Azure platform. Using Windows Azure guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime, and it supported Microsoft's sustainability initiatives by hosting the site in the cloud. The Microsoft brand prioritizes discoverability and invites consumers to engage in conversations with Microsoft, so it was critical to deliver a social-friendly site. Metia designed and developed a Microsoft-branded Web platform that enabled customers to quickly find relevant content. Using innovative technologies to deliver high-quality content to a diverse range of customers has improved perceptions of Microsoft products, increased the opportunity for revenue-generating customer transactions and exceeded expectations.

Moravia IT a.s. — recipient of the 2013 Cost Management Award

Moravia IT a.s. is a globalization solution provider, enabling companies in the information technology, e-learning and life sciences industries to enter global markets with high-quality multilingual products. When presented with the challenge of inventorying and localizing the Microsoft Knowledgebase, Moravia leveraged its proprietary technology to create predictive algorithms that can prefilter the Knowledgebase text before the localization-processing stage. Prefiltering avoids the time and engineering expenses normally associated with such projects. Moreover, a significant amount of new Knowledgebase article content avoids the localization process altogether because this solution retains and makes localized content available on an ongoing basis. Based on this success, Moravia delivered in three additional key areas: lowered costs, expanded list of languages, and scalability (adjusting to expanded word volumes). In doing so, it significantly decreased costs (unit and total) while increasing the efficiencies (localized output) for Microsoft. These three objectives were achieved without affecting user quality, as measured by linguistic quality testing and end-user acceptance of the Knowledgebase article content.

Accenture — recipient of both the 2013 Innovation and Reduced Risk awards

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company that combines proven experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies.

• Innovation. Innovation allows Accenture and Microsoft to collaborate and solve complex business problems. Accenture has consistently participated in Microsoft breakthroughs, such as creating high-impact analytics that drive wins for Microsoft in search; modernizing the technology behind Microsoft Volume Licensing programs; helping Microsoft rethink how it builds and deploys products in an "as-a-service" world; and developing ways to get Kinect to market. Accenture has been pivotal and innovative in these efforts to improve Microsoft's critical business challenges.
• Reduced risk. Accenture has played a significant role in reducing the risk and helping increase the security of Microsoft's people, processes and intellectual property. Some ways include successfully integrating financial, governance and control activities around a large acquisition, helping secure intellectual property and launch plans around the critical holiday season for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business; and evaluating risks or mitigation plans for the key new licensing capability in Windows 8.

CBRE Inc. — recipient of the 2013 Market Agility Award

CBRE Inc. is a global leader in providing real estate services and bringing a high level of insight, experience, intelligence and resources to the engagement. After accepting the Integrated Facilities Management contract in 2012, CBRE demonstrated its supreme market agility by immediately undertaking one of the most expedited and multifaceted transitions in company history. In just 30 days, CBRE negotiated nine contracts (both in the U.S. and internationally); facilitated change management with more than 500 contractors, suppliers and landlords; transferred more than 2,400 contracts; established temporary technology solutions; negotiated the transfer of leases for 151 vehicles; and set up the appropriate U.S. and international bank accounts to support the transition. Through its diligent efforts, CBRE retained 97 percent of the existing facilities teams, continued to meet financial reporting standards, facilitated all supplier payments on time, reassigned services contracts, and successfully transferred to CBRE technology systems with zero disruption to Microsoft's business or employees.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. — recipient of the 2013 Supplier of the Year Award

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) is a global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global businesses, offering a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, business process outsourcing, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. TCS' Global Network Delivery Model (GNDM) — a collaborative, best-in-class framework of people, processes and infrastructure — makes it possible for TCS to consistently ensure the success of Microsoft's initiatives across the globe. Through strong collaboration, TCS has successfully built solutions that help customers optimize and transform their businesses using Microsoft technologies. As a Microsoft customer, TCS holds one of the largest enterprise agreements and currently has more than 28,000 consultants working on Microsoft technologies. Through its commitment to drive efficiencies and process improvements, TCS has saved Microsoft millions of dollars, while making significant contributions to the successful testing and adoption of Windows 8, Azure and Microsoft SQL Server technologies.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.