2011 Global Services 100: We're in Again!
As the person at our company who compiles the information and submits the application, I can tell you that the process is not easy. There are numerous financial, client, process, technology and human resources questions to answer. The reason is that Global Services 100 (GS100) companies are chosen through a detailed method that evaluates them across several quantitative and qualitative dimensions. I'm glad they liked what they saw in Affinity Express!
What makes this award especially important for us is that Affinity Express is in a niche category of BPO: advertising and marketing production (what?). There's been a lot of attention, research and press coverage for decades on traditional segments like call center and IT outsourcing. But there is virtually nothing to be found on what we do. Many companies aren't even aware they can outsource high-volume production of online and print designs or entire functions like pre-media.
You can imagine that this makes getting general visibility, let alone awards and recognition, even more difficult. But we know we offer valuable services and have a great story to tell. Once again in 2011, GS100 shined a spotlight on us and our niche. GS100 gives validation to the category and positions us as the leader (we're the only company on the list exclusively dedicated to advertising and marketing production).
We hope it also opens the eyes of many companies who can benefit from the cost savings, improved efficiency, fast time to market and improved focus on core business they can achieve by outsourcing online ads, print ads, video production, website design, page assembly and image editing, among other services.
For our clients, it tells them they made the right decision to work with Affinity Express. As rigorous as their specific review processes might be, a nod from third parties like this with no vested interest reviewing us against various criteria can be pretty powerful.
Lastly, the publicity brings us to the attention of more great candidates: designers, project managers, IT pros, finance personnel, etc., who might be wondering why they should come to work for Affinity Express. This will allow our team to continue to grow and improve every passing year by attracting the best talent.
Clearly, the impact of the recognition is considerable on our company, clients and team members.
It's times like these when it would be convenient to have one big office so we could throw a party. But since that is not our reality (or our business model), I'll point out that this honor belongs to every single employee at Affinity Express. We all work diligently every day to deliver to both clients and our internal customers. Inclusion on the GS100 means that employees and clients made the right choice.
On top of that, accolades like this give us the periodic boost we need to keep working hard and putting in long days to develop new services, enhance our workflow systems, strengthen our infrastructure, create new training programs and, of course, write new blog posts!
It doesn't hurt that we're a company that welcomes an opportunity to celebrate!
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