The Board of Directors of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) is pleased to open the nomination process for this year's Alliance Excellence Awards. These awards aim to recognize and celebrate companies that have achieved dramatic success in their results through excellent alliance management.

Previous winners of the Award include EDS, Cisco Systems, Inc., Fujitsu, Eli Lilly and Company, Roche, P&G, Royal Philips Electronics, KLM, Northwest Airlines, HP, BT, Siebel Systems, IBM, Harley Davidson Motor Company, Starbucks Coffee Company, Federal Express Corporation, Unisys Corporation, Texas Instruments Educational and Productivity Solutions and ILOG.

Naturally, the phrase "alliance excellence" is quite broad. The Committee seeks submissions on both Alliance Programs and Individual Alliances, whether with one partner, or multiple partners. To help you consider companies to recommend, the Awards Committee has prepared a list of criteria. These criteria recognize that excellence may have many faces:

EXEMPLARY - the alliance program or alliance serves as a model of effective management. The alliance management program is tightly linked to the company's strategy, and spread across the organzation. The program is built on best practices and is well integrated with regular business processes. The company has built up sensitivity to the importance of alliances across the organization--from top management down.

INNOVATIVE - the alliance program, or individual alliance, has advanced the state of the art of alliance management. It has been creative in its approach, and contributed to learning.

HIGH-IMPACT - the company has achieved business success through its alliances and alliance management approach. Its alliances have created significant real value. Other companies look to it as a model. The company's partners find that their performance is improved by working with it.

OPEN - the company has been active in sharing the learnings from their alliances and alliance programs.

ALLIANCES FOR CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY(new category with first awards in 2008)- the company has created an alliance to address a global concern, such as public health or the environment, for the betterment of humanity.

The Awards Committee encourages submissions from mid-sized and smaller companies, as well as from major corporations, and will actively consider long-established alliances that have contributed to the development of the field of alliances, as well as leading-edge alliances whose impact is only starting to be felt. Alliance and alliance program submissions will be considered from across industries and across the corporate value chain from R&D and Joint Product Development Alliances and Alliance Programs, to Strategic Sourcing and Services, to Marketing and Channel Alliances. The Committee also encourages the submission of nominess whose alliances, or alliance programs, have created significant benefit through their activity.

We invite you to submit your recommendations of companies, specific alliances and alliance programs that you, ASAP's members, believe to be the true alliance stars.

The Awards Committee will review these recommendations (limit: 2 recommended companies per member) and narrow the list to eight or twelve nominees. The Committee will then contact key executives involved with those alliances and alliance programs to obtain their input. Simultaneously, the Awards Committee will research each nominee's alliances and programs through other sources. Based on this information, we will select ASAP's 2009 Alliance Excellence Award winners!