NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Joseph Vales and Eva Schmatz, recognized thought leaders in information technology and business process outsourcing, have been selected as 2005 HRO Superstars by the editors of HRO Today magazine, which serves the global HR and outsourcing communities. Each year, HRO Today honors the individuals who have played an exceptional role in the development, evolution and advancement of the $55 billion HR outsourcing industry. The prestigious list includes the most influential and respected corporate buyers, service providers, strategy consultants and thought leaders in the HRO (human resources outsourcing) marketplace.
Joseph Vales and Eva Schmatz are co-founders of the Reference Standards Board, which serves the information technology and business process outsourcing industries. The Board fills a critical need for corporate buyers to obtain more complete, accurate, and timely information on service providers' client references, often a key determinant in awarding multi-million and multi-billion dollar outsourcing contracts in the industry's highly competitive RFP process.
"This industry distinction recognizes and validates the strategic rationale for establishing the Reference Standards Board," said Joe Vales of Reference Standards Board. "We've been involved in numerous RFPs on both sides of the business -- as representatives of the largest service providers and as consultants to major corporate buyers -- since the early days of business process outsourcing. Providing reliable, informative and relevant client references has always been a challenge for vendors and hence, a real frustration for buyers. The Reference Standards Board is addressing that challenge head-on, with the overall objective of helping outsourcing companies make the most informed decisions possible about the service providers they select to ensure outsourcing success."
"We couldn't be more pleased with the positive response we've gotten from the outsourcing community, including this great honor, since we established the Reference Standards Board service," said Reference Standards Board's Eva Schmatz. "We clearly hit upon a nerve in the industry, and we are excited about the solutions we developed to make the sales process work in everyone's best interests. There's an enormous amount of money, resources and, frankly, careers at stake in today's outsourcing programs, and no one knows better than those intimately involved in the vendor selection process how essential customer references can be to the success of these programs."
About the Reference Standards Board
Headquartered in New York, N.Y., the mission of the Reference Standards Board is to establish high standards of professionalism, independence, and objectivity in the way that executive references are prepared and used throughout the highly competitive sales proposal process. The Board works with service providers to present their client references in the most informative and meaningful way -- with the goal of giving corporate buyers more reliable, credible, and insightful information to select the right service firms to meet their particular needs and requirements.
The Reference Standards Board is organized to serve as a central reference source or utility for the outsourcing industry. The Board has established strict standards for the interview process, scope/content of interviews, reference giver qualifications, and its proprietary research methodology, based on hundreds of interviews with corporate buyers, service providers and strategy consultants in the outsourcing community. For more information, the Board is located at 708 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017, and can be reached by telephone at (212) 777-7671 or by e-mail at info@referencestandardsboard.org.
About the Co-Founders
Joseph Vales, Senior Partner, Vales Consulting Group, has 30 years of line management and consulting experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Citibank, Shearson Lehman Hutton, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Previously, Joe was Managing Director of Global Marketing for PricewaterhouseCoopers' Business Process Outsourcing division, where he had a key management role in building a $700 million business from 1996-2001. Joe is a Founding Trustee of the HR Outsourcing Association, and a Special Advisor to the Shared Services and Business Process Outsourcing Association (SBPOA). He has contributed many thought leadership articles on IT/BPO outsourcing to these organizations, as well as to Montgomery Research Outsourcing Project, Outsourcing Journal, Outsourcing Institute, and ITSMA publications; and he is a featured speaker at the Sourcing Interests Group and major outsourcing conferences.
Eva Schmatz, President of SUMMUS, a preeminent market research firm, is well known for the pioneering market research work she has conducted to guide companies in corporate branding, marketing/sales strategies, and new business development. Eva has directed several hundred market research studies for Global 1000 companies, and interviewed thousands of C-level executives on enterprise-wide programs including outsourcing. She directs a team of market research professionals, executive interviewers (trained psychologists), and data analysts; and knows how to translate research/interview findings into actionable marketing, sales, and proposal programs. Eva developed the firm's proprietary methodology, ValueStructuring(r), to evaluate customer wants and needs, their buying motivations, and why and how their purchasing decisions are made. This proven methodology, based on more than 10,000 executive interviews over 15 years, has been adapted for use by the Reference Standards Board.