ASAP's 2006 Alliance Excellence Awards

FEBRUARY 27, 2006 - ASAP presents its 2006 "Alliance Excellence Awards" to British Telecom, PLC, Dassault Systemes, HP-Microsoft and Sprint-Cisco.

BOSTON, Feb 27, 2006 – The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) announced the presentation of its global 2006 ASAP Alliance Excellence Awards to British Telecom, plc, Dassault Systemes, Hewlett-Packard Company-Microsoft Corporation, and Sprint-Cisco Systems. The awards ceremony, during the Association’s Alliance Excellence Awards Dinner, followed the annual competition and was a highlight of ASAP’s 8th Global Alliance Summit held at the Westin Buckhead, Atlanta, Feb. 13–15. The 2006 Alliance Summit Sponsors were CA, Cisco Systems and Eli Lilly and Company (Platinum) and Boeringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals (Silver).

The awards recognize and celebrate companies that have achieved dramatic success in their alliances. This year ASAP presented awards in two categories – Alliance Program Excellence and Individual Alliance Excellence. Alliance Program Awards went to Dassault Systemes and British Telecom, plc, to acknowledge their systematic approaches to forming and managing their broad portfolios of significant alliances. Dassault has built its entire business model on leveraging external partnerships to create and deploy world-class capabilities. BT management, recognizing its need to adapt quickly in a dynamic environment, made a strong commitment to build out its alliance capability over the past four years. Individual Alliance Excellence Awards went to the HP-Microsoft Front-Line Partnership and the Sprint-Cisco Systems’ Strategic Alliance. The HP-Microsoft collaboration has grown over the past two decades to drive dramatic value for both companies. The Sprint-Cisco relationship, although newer, has a very significant material impact for both parent companies. Both of these alliances continue to evolve from their initial form and goals, with executives working closely to find new sources of value.

“A critical component of ASAP's mission - to advance the state of the art in alliance management - is to recognize and publicize exemplary companies,” said William Lundberg,
Founding President and Executive Director of ASAP. He cited as examples the Association’s global sponsors, who include Accenture, Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, CA, Cisco Systems, The Dow Chemical Company, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, P&G, SAP, Siemens, Starbucks Coffee Company, Symantec, Unisys Corporation and The Warren Company. The ASAP Awards Committee, chaired by Nick Palmer, Partner, Accenture Ltd., consists of leading academics, analysts, thought leaders and consultants having extensive experience with, and insight into, strategic alliances. “The remarkable strength of this year’s nominees is a testament both to the growing awareness of the vital role of alliances in today’s business environment and to the impact that ASAP has had on alliance-management practice”, said Mr. Palmer of this year’s awards. “For the first time in the history of ASAP, the Awards Committee was compelled to give an honorable mention to each of the finalist companies that did not receive an award.”

Companies receiving Honorable Mentions for their alliance programs included Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Rolls-Royce for its Starfish Alliance Program, and the OnStar division of General Motors. Honorable Mentions for specific alliance relationships went to the IBM-Siebel Systems Alliance and the Intel-Siemens Business Services Alliance. Award recipients are companies that are exemplary -- serving as models of effective alliance management; innovative -- advancing the state of the art of alliance management; highimpact -- achieving significant business success through alliances management; and open -- willing to share experiences and best practices with other ASAP members and with the larger alliance professional community.

Peyton Kay, Director, Alliance Management, Reuters Americas, LLC and President of ASAP’s New York/Tri-State Chapter, accepted the ASAP Chapter of the Year Award on
behalf of his chapter, while the Chairman and Board Members of the ASAP European Chapter were presented with the ASAP special Chapter Award for their contributions through their alliance conference in 2005. “Chapters are key to the success of ASAP,” said Ann Trampas, President of the Chapter President’s Council. “Through them we provide local programs and engage with our membership on an ongoing basis throughout the year.”

About the Association of Strategic Alliances Professionals:
Founded in 1999, ASAP is the leading global professional association dedicated to alliance formation and practice. It provides a forum to exchange partner/alliance best practices, resources, and opportunities and offers products that enable its 1,800 members to harness alliances as growth engines to drive corporate
performance. 

Visit www.strategic-alliances.org