Baseline Announces Call for Entries for ROI Leadership Awards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Randy Zane
Ziff Davis Media Inc.
212-503-3535
[email protected]

Baseline Magazine Announces Call for Entries for ROI Leadership Awards

NEW YORK, October 12, 2004Baseline magazine, a Ziff Davis Media publication, announced today that it is beginning to accept entries for the 2005 Baseline ROI Leadership Awards.

The awards honor companies whose deployments of specific information systems achieve positive bottom-line financial and business results. Baseline magazine developed the awards in part with Consensure, a Stamford. Conn.-based company that helps organizations realize the full economic potential of their assets by quantifying the innovation and impact of information technology.

“These awards each year establish which technology projects have the greatest impact on the companies that initiate them,” said Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, editor-in-chief of Baseline magazine. “They are a tribute to project leaders and their teams who work around-the-clock and around-the-year to create systems that give their companies significant boosts to their bottom line.”

Companies are invited to visit www.Baselineroi.com beginning Monday, Nov. 8, 2004, to download the entry form. Completed entries can be sent back electronically until midnight EST Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005.

The Baseline ROI Leadership Awards will be held in June 2005 in New York. Winners will be announced in the June 2005 edition of Baseline magazine. Descriptions of the winning projects, their objectives and their accomplishments will be posted online at www.Baselineroi.com.

A panel of independent judges will examine, evaluate and verify the results. Companies are invited to enter projects for any prize except the grand prize, which considers all projects submitted.

Individual projects may be entered in no more than two categories. The 2005 categories are:

  • Growth
  • Decision Support
  • Data Management
  • Business Intelligence
  • Productivity
  • Operations
  • Planning
  • Customer Service
  • Supplier Coordination
  • Integration
  • Collaboration
  • Government & Financial Reporting
  • Performance Management
  • People Management
  • Web Services
  • Security
  • Public Sector
  • All entries compete for the Grand Prize

    Baseline‘s ROI Leadership Awards are the best program in the industry for showing the value that can be brought to a company through the effective deployment of technology,” said Joe Zarb, president of Consensure. “And capturing, analyzing and proving that value is at the heart of what we do every day, through sophisticated software and ‘value’ engineers who work closely with companies of all sizes that are devoted to getting results from their projects.”

    Winners are selected based on results. Applicants will submit cost and benefit numbers for their projects for a three-year period. Consensure will use its ValueEngineOne (VE1) Web-based software to analyze the economic potential of each entrant’s I.T. investment portfolio, by prioritizing technology projects based on economic contribution, degree of risk and alignment with corporate strategy. VE1’s business-case framework provides not only a standard for the initial justification for I.T. capital spending, but in addition serves as a governance mechanism over the life of an I.T. project to ensure that limited financial resources are being applied appropriately.

    About Baseline
    Baseline, published by Ziff Davis Media, is a practical guide to costing and managing the deployment of leading-edge information systems. Through case studies, news stories, company dossiers and financial tools, the publication provides technology leaders and business executives with a detailed look at how their peers are implementing information technology. The success-or failure-of each implementation is measured by the company’s actual progress against “Baseline” expectations of financial returns and technology deliverables.

    About Ziff Davis Media Inc.
    Ziff Davis Media is a global special-interest media company focusing on the technology and electronic video-game markets. The Company is a leading information services provider of all technology media including publications, Web sites, conferences, events, eSeminars, eNewsletters, custom publishing, list rentals, research and market intelligence. In the United States, the Company publishes 10 market-leading magazines including PC Magazine, eWEEK, Baseline, CIO Insight, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, GameNow, Xbox Nation and GMR. The Company exports the power of its brands internationally with publications in 43 countries and 20 languages. Ziff Davis leverages its content on the Internet with seven highly-targeted technology and gaming sites including PCMag.com, eWEEK.com, ExtremeTech.com and 1UP.com. With its main headquarters and PC Magazine Labs based in New York, Ziff Davis Media also has offices and lab facilities in the San Francisco and Boston markets. Additional information is available at www.ziffdavis.com.

    About Consensure
    Consensure Inc.( www.consensure.com ) is the de facto standard for developing information technology (I.T.) business cases. Consensure helps clients realize the full economic potential of their digital, physical and human assets by prioritizing the value of I.T. projects. Consensure’s Web-based framework for this, the ValueEngineOne [VE1] application (www.valueenginex.com), helps reduce costs, increase gains and minimize risk by simplifying business-case management, project budgeting, requests for proposals (RFPs), governance and purchasing justification.