TORONTO - June 19, 2008 - Continuing its commitment to helping small and medium-sized businesses grow with networking technology, Cisco Canada today announced Digital Rapids Corp. and Retail Ready Foods, Inc. as co-winners of the Extreme Business Makeover contest. The contest winners will each receive a complete Cisco Unified Communications system for up to 50 users, valued up to $77,000.
Digital Rapids Corp, a developer of professional hardware and software solutions for bringing television, video and film content to the latest generation of viewing devices, and Retail Ready Foods Inc., a meat distribution business serving specialty meat retailers in Ontario, were chosen from more than 700 submissions by a panel of judges. Judges were looking for organizations that best described how a Cisco Unified Communications system would benefit their operational efficiency and sales performance, help address business challenges, and expand service capability to help drive growth and profitability.
"One of the key challenges for any small business is finding the right technology tools that will enable increased productivity and efficiency organization wide," said Nitin Kawale, president of Cisco Canada. "As part of our commitment to the small- to medium-sized business market, we are pleased to be able to play a key role in assisting Digital Rapids and Retail Ready Foods in transforming the way they do business. We had expected to name only one winner, but in the final tally, we're delighted to have two very strong winners. Our Cisco Unified Communications System will provide both companies with enhanced communications tools needed to grow their business, improve customer service, and communicate more effectively as a company."
Digital Rapids, based in Markham, Ontario, was ranked the 4th fastest growing company in Canada by PROFIT Magazine in 2007. The company employs more than 60 people in Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina and Hong Kong. The Cisco Unified Communications system will help enable the sales force to access technical talent pools on demand, provide centralized call management, and offer visual communications to provide the personal touch when necessary.
"One of our strengths is geographic breadth, which brings with it the challenge of maintaining a cohesive company interface between our sales and technical teams and our customers. A Unified Communications infrastructure from Cisco will help us to better maintain the advantage of our mobile workforce, empowering our sales people, and giving us a larger corporate presence in our high-visibility business," said Brick Eksten, president or Digital Rapids.
Retail Ready Foods Inc., based in Mississauga, Ontario, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The company employs 27 people and services independent retailers from a variety of locations throughout Ontario. The company recently augmented its internal call centre with a system of field sales reps for face-to-face customer interaction. The Cisco Unified Communications system will support the sales force through improved communications with head office, improve employee transitions and relocation, and save on IT resources.
John Ferraro, president of Retail Ready Foods said: "Our recent addition of field representatives has been a positive change. Cisco's Unified Communications infrastructure will provide our sales force with the effective communications tools they need to increase productivity and boost sales, and help us achieve our company-wide goal of reaching new levels of customer-service excellence."
The Cisco Unified Communications system is a suite of voice, data and video products and applications designed to help organizations of all sizes communicate more effectively. It allows customers to integrate their communications system with their information technology (IT) infrastructure, thereby streamlining business processes for the way effective businesses need to work today. For more information about the Cisco Unified Communications system and Cisco's SMB solutions, visit http://www.cisco.com/web/CA/smb/index.html
