NCAA, Disney Theatrical Group, WRI, Beauty Pie, Children’s Health, and Toast: Our Work Innovation Award-Winners are here

Our customers are no strangers to standing out, but there are a few that really tapped into the community’s innovative spirit over the last year. To be more exact: There were 28 finalists for our first ever Work Innovation Awards, each combining creativity with technology to craft solutions that are as imaginative as they are effective.

From intricate project management that delivered game-changing marketing results across 100 countries to intuitive dashboards that help build climate-friendly cities, your submissions were a step above amazing. You showcased the endless possibilities that arise when innovation meets purpose, and demonstrated how visionary work shouldn’t be confined to traditional methods. 

And in the wake of all this success, it was clear that everyone is excited to move forward and tap into the possibilities of AI, not merely as a tool to increase productivity, but as a teammate to drive impactful work. 

Without further delay, here are the winners of our first-ever Work Innovation Awards.

Best in Class: NCAA

The ultimate industry leader for innovation, our Best in Class winner uses Asana to set the new gold standard for workplace collaboration.

• Name: National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

• Mission: To deliver a world-class athletics and academic experience for student-athletes, fostering lifelong well-being. 

• Headquarters: Indianapolis, IN

• Industry: Non-profit

Why they won

To promote the NCAA as the training ground for athletes competing in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the nonprofit organization’s Communications and Championships teams set out to deliver their largest campaign to date, “Olympians & Paralympians Made Here.” Managing over 1,400 athletes representing more than 100 countries is no small feat, and the diversity of tools, varying interest in technology, and sheer volume posed significant challenges. 

By integrating Asana with all related parties and tools, the NCAA scaled storytelling efforts fourfold compared to previous games. The ability to bridge long-standing silos, optimize complex processes, and improve data hygiene was particularly important for managing creative production, content calendars, and campaign management, ensuring all elements progressed harmoniously and on schedule. 

Even mid-project, the campaign had already exceeded its targets. By using Asana to unlock new levels of productivity and efficiency, NCAA was able to scale their campaign output exponentially:  Compared to pre-games for Tokyo 2020, posts increased by 2,770% (from 12 to 331), and impressions grew by 1,440%, from 389,331 to over 6 million! 

What they’re excited for

After skillfully coordinating the complex, multifaceted, and hugely successful Olympics marketing campaign, the NCAA will leverage their learnings in Asana to scale campaigns and championships across all leagues. 

Groundbreaker: Disney Theatrical Group

This groundbreaker embodies the spirit of innovation by pushing the envelope of what’s possible in the digital workplace—with transformative results.

• Name: Disney Theatrical Group

• Mission: To entertain, inform, and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling.

• Headquarters: New York City, NY

• Industry: Entertainment

Why they won 

With the organization-wide responsibility to consistently represent Disney’s iconic brand across diverse projects, Disney Theatrical Group needs a unified voice and look across all creative materials. Before adopting Asana, they were bogged down by excessive communication in the form of emails and spreadsheets. Onboarding new team members was arduous due to unstandardized processes, sometimes leading to frustration and wasted effort.

Through the development of business-critical task trackers in Asana, Disney Theatrical Group has taken on a broader portfolio of work with a lean team. Despite some changeover, they’ve met all their deadlines, largely due to their ability to stay agile and refer back to projects in Asana as a starting point for future success. With one source of truth for all creative work, they’ve reduced the amount of time it takes to complete a task by two weeks.

Not only that, Disney Theatrical Group is potentially the only organization working in live entertainment that has mastered how to work in such a decentralized way. Paving a groundbreaking path for how successful collaborative work can look, they create complex, connected projects across a variety of teams and users—without requiring exhaustive onboarding sessions. 

What they’re excited for

With insights into performance across sales, merchandise, and licensing, teams can better understand the organization’s priorities, and determine where to provide extra support as needed. Disney Theatrical Group continues to find new ways to leverage Asana’s collaborative tools to “level up” in the workplace. 

Social Impact: World Resources Institute

This organization uses Asana as a powerful lever for social good, magnifying their contributions to build a better world.

• Name: World Resources Institute (WRI)

• Mission: To help people live in a way that protects the environment and ensures that the Earth can meet the needs of current and future generations. 

• Headquarters: Washington, D.C.

• Employees: 1,997

• Industry: Non-profit

Why they won

Before Asana, organizational-wide challenges at WRI included disconnected work, misaligned goals, unclear roles and responsibilities, and operational inefficiencies. Once they chose Asana as a solution, their user base grew from 800 to 1,997 users who leverage it as an institutional work management tool to coordinate and execute initiatives across 12 countries. 

In the first three months of 2024 alone, WRI performed 2.2 million core actions in Asana and saved 3,689 hours, boosting efficiency and saving time and costs. Two impactful use cases highlight the results of their efforts:

• The Cities Program is dedicated to creating resilient, inclusive, low-carbon destinations that are better for people and the planet. As of July 2024, they use Asana to manage 174 projects from 23 teams dispersed across the world, comprising 936 active deliverables. Of these deliverables, 703 are accountable to donors, making them business-critical to WRI’s mission.

• In Enterprise Risk Management, they’ve standardized how risks are identified, assessed, and reported with their enterprise Asana risk register, significantly enhancing their ability to understand and manage risks globally. Dashboards and reports further enhance team communication and provide leadership with actionable insights for informed decision-making.

What they’re excited for

Looking forward, WRI plans on tapping into Asana’s AI-powered features and automated processes to benefit programmatic teams and facilitate collaboration through tools like Power BI for effective project planning. The integration of AI will enhance decision-making, data analysis, and ethical, efficient project management, positioning WRI to achieve sustainable global outcomes.

Tech Visionary: Beauty Pie

This tech visionary excels in uniting their tech ecosystem with Asana, creating a connected digital workplace.

• Name: Beauty Pie

• Mission: To democratize the luxury beauty industry by making luxury beauty products more accessible and affordable.

• Headquarters: London, England

• Employees: 200

• Industry: Retail

Why they won

Beauty Pie encountered considerable challenges in managing work and collaboration, which stemmed from a lack of clarity, efficiency, and standardized workflows. The absence of clear communication channels and well-defined roles frequently resulted in misunderstandings and duplicated efforts, leading to delays and frustration. These obstacles not only undermined operational efficiency but hindered the company’s ability to deliver products and services on time, ultimately affecting both customer satisfaction and overall business performance.

By uniting their tech ecosystems into Asana, they now operate from a seamless, connected digital workplace. Integrations that enable real-time communication, efficient task management, easy document collaboration, and synchronized development workflow—including Slack, Zendesk, Google Drive, and Jira Cloud—minimize context-switching and enhance productivity. With Asana as their source of truth, 61% of collaboration became cross-functional, fostering better teamwork across the board. The enhanced clarity and accountability ensured that tasks with assigned owners were twice as likely to be completed on time, ultimately driving better business outcomes and aligning efforts with strategic objectives.

The implementation of Asana standardized workflows and streamlined processes, reducing the need for manual check-ins and automating busywork—saving the company an estimated $124,600 annually by reclaiming 444 workdays through improved efficiency and automation. 

What they’re excited for

By integrating AI-driven tools in Asana, Beauty Pie aims to enhance project management through real-time insights, predictive analytics, and intelligent resource allocation. As a result, Beauty Pie expects to see significant improvements in operational efficiency, employee satisfaction, and business performance, positioning the company to scale confidently and sustainably​​.

Marketing Visionary: Children’s Health

This marketing visionary uses Asana as a strategic partner to drive innovative marketing initiatives that make tangible impact. 

• Name: Children’s Health

• Mission: For more than 110 years, their mission has been to make life better for children.

• Headquarters: Dallas, TX

• Employees: 7,400

• Industry: Healthcare

Why they won

With the establishment of a Marketing Operations team in April 2022, Children’s Health needed a new platform to advance their impact. Siloed tools led to inefficient tracking and communication between teams and vendors, compounded by HIPAA privacy restrictions. The absence of a single source of truth caused version-control issues and duplicated documents, while poor work prioritization resulted in significant time spent on low-impact tasks. 

Now 16 months into their journey with Asana, Children’s Health has transformed the way they work. Tangible outcomes include more consistent processes, 100% satisfaction in how teams work together, and 84% satisfaction in departmental cross-functional alignment, visibility, and awareness of collaboration opportunities. Overall, less work falls through the cracks, and employees have seen a two-hour weekly reduction in internal meetings—saving 12 workdays a year per person! They’ve also saved 223 work days annually, and gotten back 80% of their time between July 2023 and June 2024.

What they’re excited for

As they continue to evolve their ways of working towards an integrated, more innovative, and strategic team, Children’s Health will use Asana to streamline operations, foster innovation, and empower team members to thrive. They’re also looking forward to exploring AI usage while complying with organizational guidelines.

Operations Visionary: Toast

This operations visionary demonstrates management excellence with Asana, supporting business agility at scale.

• Name: Toast

• Mission: Empower restaurants to delight guests, pursue their passion, and thrive.

• Headquarters: Boston, MA

• Employees: 5,000

• Industry: Software

Why they won

Looking to make some changes in early 2023, the Toast team started using Asana to develop custom reports, dashboards, and workflows tailored to their specific needs. 

Over the past year, Toast has seen tangible results across multiple departments. For example, the Education team has streamlined the management of thousands of requests, efficiently supporting product launches and enabling timely delivery of educational content to customer-facing teams. Saving many hours per month allows them to focus on high-impact initiatives that drive business growth. 

The team also supported a number of successful product launches in 2023, utilizing standardized launch playbooks and enhanced cross-functional collaboration. Optimizing content queues across web, creative, and marketing ops, Asana helped Toast complete a high volume of requests across a broad number of marketers.

Adopting Asana as a central work management platform across multiple teams has helped Toast hone their operational excellence and business agility. Teams can utilize Asana as a unified source of truth and command center for initiatives ranging from content creation to product launches and enablement. By automating tasks, streamlining workflows, and offering real-time visibility into team capacity and project progress, teams can work smarter to get more done. Robust reporting tools support their commitment to continuous improvement and data-driven decisions, helping them maintain excellence as they scale and evolve.

What they’re excited for

As Toast grows, the team is exploring ways Asana AI can help with efficiency to better allow the team to focus even more on delivering solutions that contribute to Toast’s success. The goal is to help allow the team to focus even more on delivering high-quality educational experiences that contribute to Toast’s success.

Keep the innovation coming

Inspired yet? Us, too. We can’t wait to see what you do next year.

Want to get in on this goodness? Try Asana now.