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iTalent Corporation

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2012, Click to Enter The 2014 American Business Awards

Company: iTalent Corporation
Company Description:iTalent is a leading, global technology consulting services company based in Santa Clara, CA. Founded in 2002 and recent winner of Best in Biz 2014 International Award for Most Innovative Service of the Year, iTalent serves some of the biggest names in the tech industry with capabilities and practice areas that are driving innovation and a new level of productivity.
Nomination Category:Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category:Best New Product or Service of the Year - Business Services

Nomination Title: Social Support Solution Saves $40 Million Annually

Describe for the judges the nominated product or service, including its features, functions, benefits, and performance to date (up to 525 words). Include in this section the date since the beginning of July last year on which the product or service was introduced to the marketplace:

iTalent pioneered and coined the term Social Knowledge Management (SKM) as a new service representing the convergence of Enterprise Collaboration, Knowledge Management, and Content Management. This innovative, award-winning service helps companies identify and unlock valuable knowledge and information created by their employees.

Our SKM Social Support solution was first implemented for the benefit of Cisco's Technical Services organization. The iTalent team in partnership with Cisco created an innovative community called Tech Zone as a means to help support engineers accelerate time to expertise, reduce the mean time to case resolution, facilitate collaboration among 3,000 support engineers deployed across over a dozen global support centers, and provide reusable knowledge that reduces the cost to provide support to its customers.

While the solution includes over 100 different customized features and enhancements, key highlights include:

1. Collaboration - allowing engineers to collaborate on complex issues to solve customer problems faster than traditional solutions (i.e. email, wiki, docs).

2. Integrated Workflow - building a solution that integrates into the organization's existing CRM and processes rather than creating a stand alone solution.

3. Knowledge Creation and Re-use - capturing knowledge and intelligently surfacing solutions so engineers are not answering the same problem across different teams over and over again.

4. Reputation and Rewards - employ ranking, leaderboards, and points to encourage participation and recognize expertise.

5. Self-publish content - automating the ability to publish the best solutions to Cisco.com so customers can access solutions online and avoid opening a support case.

This initiative helped Cisco save nearly $40 million this year, reduce escalations by 42%, and lowered time-to-case resolution by 32%. Moreover, this solution has been recognized in the industry receiving the TSIA Star Award and, most recently, the Stevie APAC and ABA awards.

Based on our ground-breaking work in the social support space, iTalent not only published a book, but was also invited to lead the Center for Social Knowledge at Wichita State's Applied Technology Acceleration Institute. Through this partnership, we are now providing students with experiential learning where they will gain valuable skills and experience with the latest social & collaboration technologies as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that developed the nominated new product or service (up to 125 words):

Valerie Risch is an accomplished technology leader offering business development and innovation via technology planning, management, and architecture consulting. She is a Social Knowledge Practice Leader and her experience includes several years of technology and strategy engagements with Fortune 100 organizations. She demonstrates precise technology and business acumen, understands the value of process management, and possess an ability to lead efforts in situations of ambiguity, shifts in technology, and organizational change.