Now in its fourth year, premiere industry recognition program now backed by continuous customer experience research

Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, today announced the launch of the 2021 ISG Star of Excellence™ Awards, the premiere recognition program for the IT and business services industry that ranks providers on the quality of their services based on direct customer feedback.

Now in its fourth year, the ISG Star of Excellence Awards program is backed by even more robust customer experience (CX) data that ISG uses to evaluate providers through its ISG Provider Lens™ research and make recommendations to the firm’s enterprise clients.

Previously based on an annual, point-in-time customer satisfaction survey, the latest edition of the Awards is now based on continuous CX research that asks enterprises to rate their experiences with hundreds of IT and business services providers on an ongoing basis, across six dimensions: Collaboration and Transparency; Execution and Delivery; Innovation and Thought Leadership; Governance and Compliance; People and Cultural Fit, and Business Continuity and Flexibility.

The research goes beyond general satisfaction to explore, in depth, customer experiences with specific services and solutions offered by the providers—research that is now tied directly to ISG Provider Lens quadrant evaluations.

“The premier industry recognition program is now supported by even more detailed and actionable CX data, further raising its status as a beacon of provider excellence,” said Paul Gottsegen, president of ISG Research and Client Experience. “Our comprehensive longitudinal CX research will produce a steady stream of data on customer experience—data that will result in better provider performance and better outcomes for enterprise clients and serve to lift the entire industry over the long term.”

Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research, said the CX data ISG gathers will add even more value to the firm’s ISG Provider Lens™ research, which is used to inform its proprietary provider selection process for enterprise clients, a core element of its groundbreaking ISG FutureSource™ sourcing methodology. The research, he said, will also offer a continuous feedback loop to providers to help them strengthen their offerings and customer relationships.

“Our market-leading ISG Provider Lens research just got even better,” said Aase. “Today, ISG Provider Lens is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Now we are adding a more robust CX component that delivers even better insights to our enterprise clients—insights critical to their selection of providers that will drive their digital transformations.”

ISG Provider Lens research will incorporate the new CX data in all reports published after June 2021. That data will be available to ISG advisors, at an aggregate level, for all studies published in 2021, including those published in the first half of this year. The CX data will be a permanent part of the research process for ISG Provider Lens beginning with the 2022 research agenda.

The current wave of ISG CX research, upon which the 2021 Awards will be based, is asking more than 2,500 enterprise customers about their specific experiences working with a wide range of providers, from traditional managed services providers to provider partners of cloud hyperscalers and XaaS vendors, among them AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and ServiceNow.

Winners of the 2021 ISG Star of Excellence Awards will be announced during an award ceremony in November. An overall winner—the provider that earns the highest cumulative score across all six CX dimensions—will be named, as will overall winners for Core Technology Services and Emerging Technology Services. In addition, ISG will announce market leaders across technology domains, regions and industries.

ISG is soliciting customer feedback directly and through the nominations of service providers. Enterprise customers are asked to go to the ISG Star of Excellence Participate page to complete the online survey. Service providers can nominate customers to complete the survey by going to the Nominate page.

All enterprise respondents must have direct exposure to the providers they are evaluating and, as a group, will represent a broad cross section of industries, company sizes, geographies and areas of executive responsibility.

Although ISG’s CX research is continuous, only responses received by October 15, 2021, will be used to determine the winners of the 2021 ISG Star of Excellence Awards.

For more information about the ISG Star of Excellence Awards and CX Research program, visit the program website or contact ISG at isg.star@isg-one.com.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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