WizKids is an award program we started about ten years ago to recognize emerging companies and new ideas in the front office. The rules are rather relaxed (you just read all of them) because it’s our belief that very often, emerging companies and their technologies do not have categories yet, so having a lot of rules would overlook many.

But the spirit of the award is in tact. It’s partly about technology but it’s also partly about an esthetic about invention and new ideas, which is nevertheless hard to quantify. As an example though, you can be sure that any company that invents an electric buggy whip will not find itself profiled in the WizKids report.

This year we did something unusual, even for Beagle Research (an analyst firm named after a boat that was named after a dog). All of the winners of the 2014 WizKids award have built at least a part of their groundbreaking solutions on the Salesforce1 Platform and are represented in the Salesforce AppExchange. While we are all more or less accustomed to buying apps at the Apple App Store or the Android Marketplace, it is still a bit of a stretch for some people to get their business apps that way.

But that’s what the AppExchange is all about, and an important part of that model is having the ability to build solutions on the same platform that will integrate them into an enterprise solution set and run them. For vendors who do this (and there are thousands) customers have a much easier time installing, configuring, upgrading, maintaining, and using their apps, so it’s a win all around.

This year’s WizKids are quite a group and they’ve built more than a few apps to support CRM oriented processes. Even more amazingly, some have built sophisticated business apps for financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and more, proving that the Salesforce1 Platform can go way beyond conventional business process support. So without further preamble, here are the 2014 WizKids:

• BasicGov, a company providing cloud based solutions for local and regional governments.
• Evariant, which provides a solution that knits together healthcare providers, institutions, and patients to encourage wellness.
• GreatVines, which specializes in sales solutions for the multi-tier beverage industry.
• Kenandy, a fast-growing cloud-based ERP company.
• Orchestrate, provider of a process management system for handling complex financial business processes.
• Smarsh, which offers recordkeeping, compliance, and e-discovery solutions for corporate email archives.
• TD Ameritrade Institutional, which produces a management system for independent registered investment advisors (RIA’s).
• Veeva, a provider of cloud-based solutions for life-sciences.

We’ve also published an eBook highlighting each winner, which you can access and download here.

For more information about the WizKids process or to participate in the 2015 study, please send an email to: info@BeagleResearch.com