Ever since we first launched our UC Awards event in 2018, we’ve been expanding, growing, and enhancing the experience for everyone involved.
As the landscape for unified communications has transformed, our awards ceremony has grown alongside it, with new categories to explore and more opportunities to win. This year, applicants have a wide range of categories to choose from, ranging all the way from our “people awards” for thought leaders and innovators, to our “Most Innovative Product” award.
Here’s your behind-the-scenes guide to the categories available for 2023.
UC Awards 2023: The Innovation Awards
Ideal for service providers and vendors hoping to draw attention to their transformative UC solutions, our innovation awards celebrate the true champions of the communications space.
Our categories include:
Most Innovative Product
Open to all UC vendors and service providers, the Most Innovative Product award highlights the company with the most pioneering solution for the modern UC landscape. In 2022, Avaya walked away with this accolade after competing with Dialpad, Talkdesk, Theta Lake and Webex.
Best Unified Communications Platform
Suitable for UC platform vendors, the Best Unified Communications Platform award looks at the platform with the most value to offer in today’s world. Last year, Dialpad earned the number one spot, with 8×8 and Mitel following closely behind.
Best UCaaS Provider
Focused specifically on Unified Communications as a Service providers, the Best UCaaS Provider award champions UCaaS vendors demonstrating significant success, growth, and innovation. Last year’s winner was Intermedia, and our runners up were RingCentral, Telavox, and Webex.
Best Collaboration Platform
Designed to honour the market leaders unifying our teams, the Best Collaboration Platform award is open to all collaboration software vendors, from video conferencing tools, to meeting platforms. Webex won the gold last year, with Mitel, RingCentral, and CallTower all reaching the shortlist.
Best CPaaS Platform
Given to CPaaS platform providers capable of demonstrating innovation, growth and success with their API-centric platform, the Best CPaaS Platform award was earned by Plivo in 2022. Vonage, Radisys, Horison, and IntelePeer all made the shortlist.
Best Service Management Platform
The Best Service Management Platform award salutes the leaders transforming the growing service management space with innovative tools for platform configuration, management, and administration. VOSS was our winner in 2022, competing against Nuwave, Kurmi, and Webex.
Best Endpoint Product
This award, open to voice and video endpoint vendors offering tools like conference phones and headsets, celebrates the crucial hardware in the UC sector. Ooma earned the top spot in 2022, while Mitel, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Spectralink, Poly and Jabra made the shortlist.
Best Meeting Room Product
Open to vendors demonstrating innovative thinking in the meeting room space, the Best Meeting Room product award honours room kits, devices, accessories, and software applications. We gave this award to Webex in 2022, with Logitech, DisplayNote, and Poly all included in the shortlist.
Best Hybrid Workplace Product
This award celebrates innovators in the hybrid workplace, designing tools to synchronize and unify teams. DTEN was our gold-standard winner in 2022, competing against Zoom, Webex, and Neat on the final shortlist.
Best Compliance Product
Open to vendors providing regulatory control and compliance solutions for UC and collaboration, the Best Compliance Product award was won in 2022 by Verint. We also commended Tango Networks, LeapXPert, Theta Lake, and ASC Technologies.
Best Use of AI
Vendors that utilize AI to enhance communication and collaboration can apply for the Best Use of AI award. In 2022, our winner was Theta Lake, but we also celebrated Dialpad, Coolpo, and Sinch for their phenomenal tools.
Best Microsoft Teams Solution
Open to vendors connected to the Microsoft Teams vendor ecosystem, the Best Microsoft Teams Solution award honours those supporting the Teams ecosystem. This is a new category introduced for 2023, as the Teams landscape continues to evolve.
UC Awards 2023: The People Awards
Our People awards celebrate industry success among innovative individuals in the UC sector. We offer a range of categories to consider, including :
UC Leader of the Year
An award recognizing industry success, strategic influence, leadership, and overall contribution to a UC company, the UC Leader of the Year award went to Tiaga Paiva from Talkdesk in 2022.
Collaboration Leader of the Year
Celebrating the strategic influence and success of a thought leader in the collaboration industry, the Collaboration Leader of the Year award was won by Paola Ferretti of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise last year.
Rising Star Awards
Our Rising Star awards look at up-and-coming individuals and organisations alike. Our individual Rising Star award, celebrating a person demonstrating exceptional promise in UC was won by Laura Harle of BenQ in 2022. The organisation that won the Rising Star award for its exceptional growth and potential was Nuwave.
Apply for Your Chosen Categories today
With so many amazing categories to choose from, everyone has an opportunity to win at this year’s UC Awards, 2023. Remember, you can apply for as many categories as you like, so start getting your submissions in now!
