Comic Relief had the last laugh at Information Age’s Effective IT Awards last week, as the UK charity walked away with both the prestigious Most Effective IT Project award and the Most Effective Use of IT in a Charitable Organisation at the glitzy awards ceremony in London.
The judges – a star-studded list of senior IT executives, including British Airways CIO Paul Coby and Joe Little, from BP’s Chief Technology Office – applauded Comic Relief’s intense focus on the quality of the data it holds on its 3 million supporters – a focus that has paid huge dividends in terms of tax benefits. The award was presented by sponsor OKI Printing Solutions.
The winners’ podium also played host a dozen other IT teams. The award for the Most Innovative Use of IT, sponsored by JustSystems, went to the East of England Co-operative Society for its voice-based warehouse management project – a forward-thinking system that speeds order fulfillment. Built by a team of just eight staff at a cost of only £300,000, the project also won the award for Most Effective Use of IT in Retail, sponsored by Board MIT.
Also picking up a pair of trophies, the Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust was awarded the Most Effective Use of Enterprise Infrastructure and the Most Effective Use of IT in Public Service, after the Trust was able to reduce its IT total cost of ownership by 62% through the implementation of a virtualised data management infrastructure.
Other outright winners included ING Direct, which collected the Most Effective IT Services Partnership award, sponsored by FNZ, for its innovative mortgage application, an SOA-based package that enabled its highly successful entry into the UK home-loan market. The Dutch bank also carried off the Most Effective Use of IT in Financial Services award.
At the prestigious Room By the River venue on London’s South Bank, John Radcliffe Hospital took the award for Most Effective Use of Communications Technologies, sponsored by VeriSign, for its wireless-enabled system for monitoring the movement of blood samples and units.
On the night the Effective IT awards raised £15,000 for the Wooden Spoon, a charity that supports underpriveleged children.
The full winners of Information Age’s Effective IT Awards 2007 were:
OVERALL AWARDS
Most Effective IT Project 2007 (sponsored by OKI Printing Solutions)
Comic Relief
Most Innovative Use of IT 2007 (sponsored by JustSystems)
East of England Co-operative Society
SECTOR-SPECIFIC AWARDS
Most Effective Use of IT in Utilities, Energy and Telecoms
BT
Most Effective Use of IT in Retail (sponsored by Board MIT)
East of England Co-operative Society
Most Effective Use of IT in a Charitable Organisation
Comic Relief
Most Effective Use of IT in Construction
Edmund Nuttall
Most Effective Use of IT in Financial Services
ING Direct
Most Effective Use of IT in Manufacturing & Logistics (sponsored by OKI)
Tennant Company
Most Effective Use of IT in Professional Services (sponsored by JustSystems)
Lowe & Partners Worldwide
Most Effective Use of IT in Public Service
Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust
INDUSTRY-WIDE AWARDS
Most Effective Use of Communications Technologies
(sponsored by VeriSign)
John Radcliffe Hospital
Most Effective Use of Information (sponsored by OKI)
Lowe & Partners Worldwide
Most Effective Use of IT to Manage IT
Credit Suisse
Most Effective IT Services Partnership (sponsored by FNZ)
ING Direct
Most Effective Use of Software
G's Marketing
Most Effective Enterprise-Wide Infrastructure
Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust
