Last night at the 11th annual CDN Channel Elite Awards (CEA) there were seven first time winners and one of them took home the coveted Solution Provider of the Year award: Clear Concepts of Winnipeg, Man.
A crowd of close to 200 people packed the Paramount Conference and Event Venue in North Toronto to witness Clear Concepts’ heart-warming story of triumph.
Clear Concepts started business back in 2001 with a strategy based on word of mouth. The company’s reputation traveled fast but it also travelled far. The winner of the Solution Provider of the Year award captured this prize by provided a First Nation’s community with trust, respect and pride. The CEA judges thought the Winnipeg company went over and above its own capabilities to provide essential IT services to several remote communities in all three Canadian Territories.
IT services that are take for granted in many businesses such as servers, network devices, desktop monitoring and maintenance, helpdesk, virtualization, wireless, hosted exchange, back up, Web site design, and security are vital for the growth and well-being of small communities separated by many kilometres. Clear Concepts provided remote IT managed services and support to more than 40 First Nations and more than 30 remote healthcare facilities.
The Finance Manager of the Swampy Cree Tribal Council said this about the CEA winner: “After (they) got us up and running there was no more downtime. Our productivity increase by more than 50 per cent and we now have access to many competent technicians to help us with all of our communities.”
Clear Concepts also won the gold for Best Small Business Solution.
The 2013 CEA also featured five solution providers with double award victories. Navantis captured the Best Channel Marketing award along with a silver award for Best Managed Services, this just after introducing the MSP offering last year.
Newcomer Orckestra of Montreal also won two awards: A gold for Best Mobile Solution and a silver for Best Enterprise Solution.
Perennial CEA award winner Compugen of Thornhill, Ont., won the highly coveted Best Service Organization award gold and a silver award in the Best Mid-Market category.
Top 5 Solution Provider OnX struck gold as the Best Managed Services company and they also won a silver prize in for Best Cloud Solution.
And, one time Solution Provider of the Year Infinite IT Solutions Inc. of Mississauga, Ont. Won two awards. The company won a gold prize for Best Mid-Market solution and a silver for Best Mobile Solution.
The remaining gold winners are Habanero Consulting Group of Vancouver for Best Enterprise Solution and Ideaca of Toronto for Best Cloud Solution.
Gibraltar Solutions was on hand to win a silver award for Best Channel Marketing Initiative. Newcomer Sela Canada was awarded Bronze in that category.
LaserNetworks won bronze for Best Managed Services.
Multiple CEA winner Insite Computer Group captured the bronze award for Best Cloud Solution.
Montreal-based Top 100 Solution Provider Acceo Solutions Inc. won bronze for Best Mobile Solution.
A past Solution Provider of the Year award winner Conpute from Oshawa, Ont., took home the Bronze as Best Service Organization and Audcomp of Burlington, Ont., won the silver award for Best Service Organization.
Itergy of Montreal won the Bronze award for Best Small Business Solution. Also in that category WebSan Solutions Inc. won the silver prize for Best Small Business Solution.
Finally FlexITy Solutions won bronze for Best Enterprise Solution.