OREANDA-NEWS. September 12, 2016. National Outsourcing Association (NOA) announced the names of the 2016 NOA Awards shortlist. Now in its thirteenth year, the National Outsourcing Association Awards recognizes and celebrates the efforts of companies who have demonstrated best practice in outsourcing.

This year, the participants competed in 18 categories. IBA Group was shortlisted in the categories Outsourcing Destination of the Year (Belarus) and Award for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

IBA Group submitted Belarus for a NOA award because the Belarusian IT outsourcing industry contributes significantly to the national economy and serves as a foundation of information society and knowledge economy in the country. The Government of Belarus declared IT a foundation of information society and included outsourcing services in the National Strategy of Sustainable Economic Development. With a population of 9.5 million people, Belarus hosts the largest IT outsourcing companies in Eastern Europe.

For the CSR award, IBA Group submitted the project Promotion of IT in Belarus among People with Disabilities. Implemented by the IBA Institute, a member of IBA Group, it was the first IT education project for disabled people in Belarus. In total, 120 disabled were trained, including 89 remotely. Following the course, IBA Group organized a national contest in system administration for people with disabilities with 45 course graduates joining the competition and ten qualifying for the final. After the project was completed, former students volunteered transfer of their competencies to peers and six graduates, including the contest winner, were offered IT jobs.

Commenting on this year's NOA Awards, Kerry Hallard, CEO of the NOA, said: “This is without doubt the most competitive year ever in terms of submissions; the quality of case studies evidencing outsourcing excellence across aspects such as relationship and contract management, innovation, service delivery and collaboration has made the judging process an extremely challenging one. Those buyers and service providers who made the shortlist should feel very proud to get this far as the bar has been raised considerably.”

The NOA Award winners will be announced on November 10, 2016 in London, UK. To see the 2016 NOA Awards shortlist, please visit NOA website.

About NOA

The British National Outsourcing Association (NOA) is the leading association serving both the outsourcing professional and the global outsourcing industry. NOA is committed to advancing the outsourcing profession and improving and growing the outsourcing industry in the UK and globally. The NOA Awards are completely independent, thus being the most highly respected and coveted awards within the outsourcing industry. For more information, visit http://www.noa.co.uk.