Hackett Group names 2019 Digital Award winners

Miami-based consulting firm The Hackett Group has named Bayer and IBM winners of its 2019 Digital Awards, recognizing achievement in smart automation, robotic process automation (RPA), cognitive computing, and analytics, the firm said this month.

The 2019 Digital Awards honor companies that are on the cutting edge of digital transformation, "using smart automation and advanced analytics to solve business problems," according to The Hackett Group.

Bayer won the award in the advanced analytics category for its Statistical Demand Forecasting System, which has allowed the company to achieve "state-of-the-art, automated predictive analytics, all in-house," according to The Hackett Group. IBM won in the smart automation category for its Cognitive Support Platform, which is powered by IBM Watson technology and is helping the firm understand problems, generate insights, and take action to resolve client issues around the world, The Hackett Group said. Four other companies were recognized as finalists: HCL/Manchester United Football Club, HP, IBM, and Indecomm.

"Disruptive digital technologies continue to take great strides in terms of impact, affordability, and usability," Paul Morrison, managing director, The Hackett Group, said in a statement announcing the award winners. "We see companies from all sectors making major changes to their back, middle, and front offices with tools such as RPA, cognitive automation and advanced analytics. For many enterprises, these changes are initial pilots. But for others, such as our winners and finalists today, these are mature and massive changes that can enable breakthroughs like providing proactive and super-fast and personalized services to tens of millions of customers, or freeing up talent from hundreds of thousands of hours of wasted admin work."