Nice to see these guys back in the news: Parature (News - Alert) has been named a Fall 2008 Recognized Innovator by the Association for Services Management International and the Service & Support Professionals Association.

 

Winners and finalists were selected by a panel of judges, including industry experts, AFSMI and SSPA members, and Vice President of Technology Research John Ragsdale.

 

“SSPA and AFSMI Research focused on a topic becoming a common boardroom conversation today: how companies can shrink their corporate carbon footprint through green initiatives,” Ragsdale said. “While the primary focus of most corporate green projects has been reducing electric consumption, these awards center on processes and technologies specific to support, such as virtual support operations, reducing field service visits, and field service schedule optimization.”

 

This reporter’s always liked the company -- in August 2007 Parature ranked No. 670 on Inc.'s 5,000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. The Inc. 5,000, an extension of Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 500 list, catches many businesses that are too big to grow at the pace required to make the Inc. 500, as well as a host of smaller firms.

 

And in June 2007, it was named one of D.C.’s best places to work by Washington Business Journal. Parature scored high marks in all areas of the survey, but what caught this reporter’s eye was their “Five Guys Fridays” when food from Five Guys Burgers & Fries restaurants is brought in for all employees at no cost.

 

That and their holding corporate quarterly meetings off-site at AMC Movie Theaters, throwing quarterly celebrations at local D.C. hot spots and holding cross company activities like ping-pong, basketball, soccer, and foosball tournaments, well, how can you not love a company like that? Have your people call my people, Duke - although leaving northern New Zealand to move back to northern Virginia would be tough.

 

The Enabling Virtual Support Centers award recognizes Parature as a provider of technology that “engages remote employees so they are not isolated, enables support management to understand the complete picture of the employee, even when they are working remotely and identifies training needs of remote engineers and streamline remote training delivery.”

 

Parature officials say their product lets organizations change the way they support their customers through Software-as-a-Service delivery and “integrated, intuitive” design that lets users “serve, support, engage with and retain customers in today’s Web world.”