Microsoft recognizes outstanding contributions by suppliers

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May 22, 2019, 13:00 ET

REDMOND, Wash., May 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 8, Microsoft Corp. announced the recipients of the 2019 Microsoft Supplier Program (MSP) Excellence Awards. The MSP Excellence Awards recognize excellence by Microsoft's top suppliers in performance, relationship, value, reduced risk, diversity, sustainability and impact sourcing. The MSP mission is enabling a compliant, capable and competitive supply base to deliver increasing value to Microsoft and its suppliers. Winners of the 2019 MSP Excellence Awards were vetted by an award selection committee including representatives from procurement, business group stakeholders and external judges.

Winners were announced at the 2019 MSP Supplier Excellence Awards ceremony at Microsoft on May 8, 2019, in Redmond, Washington.

"Congratulations to all the MSP Excellence Award recipients and finalists for your outstanding work," said Mike Simms, general manager and chief procurement officer at Microsoft. "These awards represent your deep commitment to delivering high-impact results contributing to the success of Microsoft. Microsoft's Supplier of the Year winners, Compass Group, Wiwynn, Nextant and AnRui Digital, have collaborated with Microsoft to demonstrate efficiency gains, strategic partnerships, innovation and risk management. Amaxra and Sutherland Global have created amazing opportunities for diverse and disadvantaged people to succeed, and Tech Mahindra exhibited a huge commitment to an aggressive set of absolute emissions reduction goals. On behalf of Microsoft, I want to thank the award winners and all the finalists for their significant contributions and partnership."

Following are the 2019 winners, finalists and an overview of their excellent service delivery.

MSP Supplier of the Year - Small category Winner: AnRui Digital

Finalists: Bastion Effect, BES Events

AnRui leveraged its in-depth knowledge of Microsoft's products and solutions to design and deliver training to users, technical partners and developers, as well as facilitate hands-on lab sessions. AnRui developed innovative solutions, such as a new mobile app that enables Microsoft Partners to access Microsoft learning and certification materials, to help broaden reach and increase engagement and collaboration.

MSP Supplier of the Year - Medium category Winner: Nextant

Finalists: Lenati, Upwork

Nextant has been a strategic partner and trusted advisor on a range of topics by truly understanding Microsoft's business, aligning with Microsoft priorities and taking feedback to improve. Nextant consistently delivered amazing performance and savings through automation and improved processes, while remaining flexible and adaptable to the business needs. Nextant also helped scope and build a power app that revolutionized the way Microsoft communicates to the field, and helped reduce operational risk by implementing business-critical quality assurance plans.

MSP Supplier of the Year - Large category Co-Winner: Compass Group

Finalists: Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services

Compass consistently demonstrated strategic partnership to identify solutions that delivered savings without compromising the customer experience. Compass focused on customer service by completing more than 10 capital projects over the seasonal holiday closure to minimize Microsoft employee impact. Compass redesigned its service response protocol using Microsoft technology to improve its response time from 24 hours to one hour. Compass also strongly delivered in alignment with Microsoft's Accessibility and Sustainability values by developing a first-of-its-kind navigation bar, allowing those with visual impairments to use the cashless ordering/payment system and launching a zero-waste café pilot.

MSP Supplier of the Year - Large category Co-Winner: Wiwynn

Wiwynn is a component developer and system integrator of cloud servers for Microsoft, which has partnered with Microsoft on strategic initiatives and consistently delivered a high level of support. Wiwynn development support has been valuable in helping Microsoft achieve time-to-market on new technologies and is very supportive of Microsoft supply-chain initiatives. Wiwynn was instrumental in ensuring that Microsoft was not affected by 2018 industrywide component shortages through proactive implementation of a strategic buy process to ensure on-time delivery of Microsoft servers. Wiwynn has made significant investments to proactively mitigate risks by opening a new factory in Taiwan, increasing rack capacity in China and opening a satellite office in Redmond to support Microsoft teams.

MSP Supplier Diversity Award Winner: Amaxra

Finalists: Accenture, Wimmer

Amaxra has been awarded the 2019 MSP Supplier Diversity Award for being the supplier to make the most progress on diversity values. Amaxra is a certified diverse business and a business management and technology solutions firm. It was established in 2007 by Microsoft alumni Rosalyn Arntzen. It successfully supported a number of projects involving cultural and gender awareness, and community engagement. As a supplier, Amaxra's ability to understand Microsoft's most crucial business priorities, while reinforcing progress toward diversity goals, is of significant value to Microsoft. Diversity is the first of Amaxra's top six values. In its own words, "Diversity leads the way. The workplace needs to be one where diverse individuals (walks of life, experiences, situations, skills sets, work styles and more) and diverse teams come together to drive best contributions."

MSP Sustainability Award Winner: Tech Mahindra

Finalists: AT&T, Cisco and Infosys

Tech Mahindra was recognized for its leadership on climate change. Tech Mahindra committed to an aggressive set of absolute emissions-reduction goals, approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative, that will result in emissions 50% below 2015-2016 levels by 2050. Tech Mahindra has undertaken a thoughtful and comprehensive program to reduce Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions. To date, it has installed solar generation at its plants in the Indian cities of Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Noida and Chandigarh. Tech Mahindra has developed a "Connected Solar Plants" solution using Microsoft Azure, aligning with Microsoft's mission to help empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.

Judges for the Sustainability Award were Betty Cremmins with CDP, Verena Radulovic with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Elizabeth Willmott with the Microsoft Environmental team and Michael Mondshine with WSP.

MSP Impact Sourcing Award Winner: Sutherland Global

Finalists: Compass Group, Hanson Consulting Group

Sutherland was recognized for its leadership on helping their employees achieve more by eliminating barriers to employment and empowering individuals through Impact Sourcing. Sutherland has the mission to impact one life or family for every person employed by the company. Over the past 10 years, Sutherland's taken a systems approach to inclusion through education intervention and job opportunities for tens of thousands of individuals across the globe. The company collaborates and shares with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders to expand their impact. Sutherland's model is the first of its kind to be used in a commercial setting.

Judges for this award included Sara Enright with Business for Social Responsibility - Global Impact Sourcing Coalition, Mamadou Biteye with the Rockefeller Foundation and Geoff Talbot with the Sourcing Industry Group.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.