Company’s Remarkable Transformation Merits Top C.I.P.A. Award

	For More Information: Contact: norm.kirkpatrick@C.I.P.A..com (905) 695-6590

TORONTO, Nov. 27, 2002 – A company that was once an old-fashioned remnant of the industrial era is being honoured today by the Canadian Information Productivity Awards (C.I.P.A.) for reinventing itself through exemplary use of information technology.

Gienow Building Products Ltd. of Calgary, which manufactures high-quality doors and windows, primarily for home renovation, used to be a craft operation. Its production cycle for a typical order was four weeks. Today it is 24 hours, and the company is in the vanguard of a technological revolution in the building industry.

Gienow received the Best of Show Solution Award, the highest recognition in Canada in the field of information management, at the 2002 C.I.P.A. Gala Banquet.

“This is a textbook case,” said Paul Nelson, chair of the C.I.P.A. National Judging Committee. “Anyone who doubts the ability of Canadian companies to become 21st-century leaders through visionary management and technological know-how should have a good look at Gienow Building Products.”

Seven other organizations also won premier awards from C.I.P.A. (www.C.I.P.A..com), Canada's largest information management awards program, which is celebrating its 10th year. The Gala Banquet was held at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel before a black-tie audience of senior executives from across Canada.

C.I.P.A. President and CEO Robert Livingstone noted that many of the approximately 240 winners of C.I.P.A. awards in the past decade have been smaller organizations which, like Gienow, have found innovative ways to use limited resources in becoming models of integrated, computer-controlled efficiency.

These companies should be emulated,” Livingstone said. “The sad fact is that roughly half of small and mid-sized companies in Canada have yet to make any significant use of the Internet in running their businesses. C.I.P.A. winners like Gienow are showing the way. History tells us that the difference between winners and losers is frequently the former’s willingness to invest at a time when everyone else is paralyzed.”

C.I.P.A. has been disseminating best practices in information management since 1992, when it was created by founding managing partners Canadian Business magazine, now published by Rogers Publishing, and Capgemini Canada Inc.

Twenty-two organizations received Awards of Excellence at the Gala Banquet, and eight of those, including Gienow, also won best-of-category awards. The winners of the eight award categories are as follows:

Larry Simon, chair of the C.I.P.A. Board of Directors and vice-president & chief technology officer of Capgemini Canada Inc., said that case studies of all the winning entries will appear in coming months on the C.I.P.A. Web site and in its electronic newsletter, as a strategic resource for Canadian information managers.

"C.I.P.A. is continuing its unique role in the information technology industry, by identifying good examples that demonstrate the value of IT to organizations of all sizes and in all sectors," Simon said.

C.I.P.A. award winners are selected by a 13-member National Judging Committee of information technology management experts from across Canada. Technology consultants from Capgemini Canada Inc. conduct independent on-site reviews of all winning solutions to verify the entries.

C.I.P.A. gathers nominations for the awards through its Web site and through three affiliated awards organizations: the Fédération de l'informatique du Québec (FIQ), which manages the OCTAS awards for Quebec-based organizations; the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, which administers the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce Technology Innovation Awards, and the Vancouver Section of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), which manages the Innovators in Technologies Awards.