Real winners prove it through awards
by howardWhatever line of business you are in, winning corporate recognition awards should be a key element of the reputation building process. It will make you stand out from the crowd and instil that vital ingredient for business success – trust. Talk is cheap and a good public relations consultant can spin a positive yarn on just about anything in the same way politicians do. But quality corporate awards speak for themselves, they are invariably judged by an independent panel or industry peers.
Thanks to web sites like AwardsIntellience.com we can all quickly and easily track down what awards are available and find links to specific web sites for award criteria and deadlines, so that’s a big time saver. Some awards are of what we call the ‘non-intervention’ kind i.e. no entry process is required, the judges simply draw up a short list for each category and pick a winner or ask industry peers to vote for their choice. But most serious UK awards have a formal entry process. This often requires the entrants to write say 500-1000 words about why they think they should win that category and to back it up with facts and figures such as sales data and profit summaries. Drafting and packaging corporate awards submissions that meet specific criteria can therefore be time consuming and is often best left to those that understand what the judges will be looking for and have the professional writing skills to deliver a persuasive entry that will stand out from the crowd. It is also a big commitment to take on, as most companies who are serious about winning corporate recognition awards need to be entering at least one award a month.
There are several professional award management companies who can help in this respect and who would be happy to develop an ongoing awards programme for you. With regard to the so called non-intervention awards, there is a role for well executed lobbying of judges and industry peers too, again, a good award management specialist can help with this.
The benefits of winning corporate recognition awards are, of course, much wider than just putting the award logo on company letterhead and on the website. The positive effect on staff morale can be huge as well as the cultural shift internally as staff increasingly buy-in to a best practice approach and strive to improve products and customer service. Research has also proved a clear link between winning awards and an increase in sales, share price, operating income and overall business success, further information about this can be found on the AwardsIntelligence.com home page.
While winning awards is not a new opportunity to shine, it seems that their day has finally come with smart, successful companies realising that in this age of spin and hype, third party endorsement through awards is a powerful marketing tool and a route to increased business success.