Smartforce wins Gold Award

And further awards for “International Training Project of the Year” and “e-Learning Project of the Year”

SmartForce, the world's largest e-Learning company, today announced it has won the “Training Company of the Year” Gold Award presented by the Institute of IT Training in London.

The Institute also recognised SmartForce with further awards for “International Training Project of the Year” and “e-Learning Project of the Year.” This is the second consecutive award as ‘Training Company of the Year’ for SmartForce in the UK, following its success at the Computing magazine awards in October 2001.

“These awards are further, clear, powerful evidence of recognition from the industry that we are accomplishing our objectives, executing to the strategy we have set out and continuously demonstrating the leadership that reflects the position we hold in the space,” said Paul Henry, Executive Vice President of SmartForce. “The awards speak to innovation in approach (SmartForce University), excellence in delivering value with scale (Lionbridge), and innovation and quality (Training Company of the Year). These are the attributes that deliver real value for our customers and will ultimately help them to achieve their most critical business goals.”

The Institute of IT Training promotes high standards of excellence through its work in the training industry with vendors and customers. In so doing, it has named SmartForce “Training Company of the Year” for providing consistently high-quality and innovative learning programs that drive business strategies and, in the process, deliver significant results for its customers.

The innovation and success of one such results-driven e-Learning programme, created by SmartForce to train Lionbridge Technologies’ global workforce, attracted the attention of the Institute in granting SmartForce the “International Training Project of the Year” award. Launched in 2001, this programme was targeted to drive increased revenues and enhance Lionbridge’s competitive advantage by keeping employees current on evolving technologies and increasing the number of industry certifications among its employees.

Similarly, SmartForce University (SFU), a programme developed to transform SmartForce’s own sales force was awarded in the “e-Learning Project of the Year” category. SmartForce used SFU as the primary vehicle for helping its salesforce share its vision of e-Learning with customers and for transforming itself into the world’s largest e-Learning company.

“We are delighted to present the Gold Award this year to SmartForce,” says Colin Steed, chief executive of the Institute of IT Training. “The company has had a fantastic year and has carried out a reengineering of the organisation. But what really impressed the judges was its excellent staff development programme, which runs throughout the company, from new recruit to chief executive. The judges were particularly impressed in how the company has made such creditable progress over the past year with significant staff development and financial results.”

February 28th, 2002