The Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) has announced its Electronic Commerce of the Year and Outstanding Achievement Awards during the second Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) Collision Industry Red Carpet Awards Breakfast on Oct. 31. Held during the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the awards ceremony provided the opportunity for industry organizations to recognize outstanding leadership, dedication and commitment for individuals and businesses in the industry.
“CIECA is really proud this morning to recognize four individuals and one company for their exceptional efforts,” said Clint Marlow, director at Allstate Insurance and CIECA’s chairman of the board.
Andy Bober, ARMS Business Solutions, received the Outstanding Dedication Award.
“An integral contributor to the CIECA standard, Andy was primarily focused on mobile data standards,” said Marlow. “He single-handedly developed a process in which CIECA transforms our BMS message suite to the messages that mobile devices support, ensuring that our BMS works on future mobile devices.”
Joanna Cohen of Car-Part.com, who recently spoke at the annual CIECA Symposium and held a CIECAst webinar about updating estimates with alternate parts, received the Outstanding Contribution Award.
“Joanna has been a longtime contributor to the development of CIECA standards,” said Marlow. “She has been focused primarily on procurement and estimating messages.”
Marlow said two deserving individuals received the Outstanding Leadership Award.
The first is Leslie Redfield from Genpact. After a short time being involved with the Photo Estimating Committee, Marlow said Redfield led the message development – particularly the message that identifies the estimate as being created from a photo.
“That enables all parties involved to track which estimates or supplements are getting created from one source,” said Marlowe.
Darrell Amberson from LaMettry’s Collision also received an Outstanding Leadership Award. Amberson led the CIECA Scanning Committee from inception.
“His efforts as a contributor really helped the work that was done, which now includes multiple BMS messages from assignment to repair order where the scanning information can be included,” said Marlow. “He never missed a meeting and always kept the committee focused.” Marlow said Amberson also supported the ease of the implementation and is an extremely valuable member to CIECA and the industry.
The Electronic Commerce Company of the Year award recipient was NuGen IT. The award was accepted by Pete Tagliapietra, business development manager of the company.
“The board of trustees extends this award every year to a company in recognition of their outstanding leadership, contribution and dedication, furthering CIECA’s mission in the collision industry,” said Marlow. “NuGen IT’s open systems integrate with many platforms in the collision repair industry. The company and its products are fully aligned with the mission and vision of CIECA.”
Marlow thanked all of the CIECA members, companies and employees for their support over the past year.
“In 2018, CIECA members participated in over 250 conference calls and face-to-face meetings to respond to the needs of the industry,” he said. “When we think of 2018, it’s a very exciting time for CIECA. It’s the 15th year in a row that we had two major publications of messages. We now have over 200 business functions that have standardized messages to support it.”
Marlow also highlighted some of the projects completed over the past year, especially those that support mobile devices. These include First Notice of Loss (FNOL), photo estimating, enhancing the estimate and an exchange information repair procedure project.
He said it’s an exciting time to be part of CIECA and encouraged industry involvement from all stakeholders.
During the breakfast, awards were also presented by the Automotive Management Institute (AMi), Automotive Service Association (ASA), BodyShop Business, I-CAR, National Auto Body Council (NABC) and SCRS.
