About the Awards
A Celebration of Excellence and Innovation in British Business
The UK Business Awards (UKBA) recognise the finest accomplishments from the world of British business. Now in its sixth year, ‘The Dons’ are back with 16 categories, in which businesses of every size and sector have the chance to do well.
These Awards recognise the organisations, teams and individuals who are achieving great results in business. Through open finalists presentations we share best practice. The UKBA is an inspirational experience that enables personal and professional growth.
The following is an overview of the awards.
For more information have a look around the site or email marija.prokic@awrdsinternational.com or call +442081235228.
Recruitment of Entries
The first part of the awards is the recruitment of entries. Our Awards Consultants are here to help potential entrants understand more about the event and the many benefits they can obtain from participation.
Judging
At the same time, we build a team of upwards of 50 judges. Our aim is for 5 judges per panel, because we want the judging to be thorough and to do that judges need to have the time to scrutinise every entry. You may have noticed a tendency among awards to increase the numbers of judges. Thats because of us. Slowly but surely the awards sector is realising that to do your entry justice takes time and effort. A panel of 5 judges with 100 entries can’t spend enough time on the entries, it’s as simple as that. On average our entries are assessed for at least 7.5 hours and scored 10 times.
The judges score the written submissions following the announcement of the finalists and before the event date of July 9th.
The Awards Finals
The 9th of July is the big day. The day all our judges and finalists and their guests and supporters have been waiting for. This is the day we hold the awards finals and ceremony. It’s an exhilarating experience. It’s a challenge, it’s fun, it’s active and it’s exciting. The effort which the finalists and judges make in the morning is rewarded by hearing the results during a fun and engaging awards ceremony. During the morning 10 to 15 panels of judges assess the entries in live presentations. Categories of 5 finalists make presentations of 30 minutes to the judges. Back to back presentations are scored by the judges and the scores are entered into the online application, along with feedback and comments.
Awards Manager
The scores and comments are entered into our application, Awards Manager. We developed Awards Manager over the last ten years, It’s a bespoke application developed to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience for our customers. Awards Manager also provides us with complete transparency at every stage of the entry and judging process. Awards Manager ensures we never lose an entry, never announce the wrong winners and we can always investigate any queries form our customers, with complete confidence. (Did someone say never say never?) It also enables us to send out judges feedback and category and individual scores to all our entrants, following the awards.
The Awards Ceremony
The awards ceremony takes an hour or so in the afternoon, about an hour after judging finishes. This is the first time we will know who the winners are and we need to prepare the AV for the ceremony with the details of the Gold Silver and Bronze winners. During the awards ceremony we hear from keynote speakers. We also have a raffle for our charity Barnardo’s, where we raise money for the Tiger Project. The Tiger Project helps young adults who have had difficult lives to get back on the straight and narrow and make something of themselves. Since we started working with Barnardo’s our customers have raised £200,000 for this important cause. A special host who runs the awards ceremony announces the awards presenters, and they announce the winners and it takes an hour or so. It is a fun event, when you are glued to your seat and your screen. This will be live on the internet so you can invite all your colleagues from work and even your friends to watch. The finalists need to prepare a short acceptance speech and description of what they did, because when they win they will be asked to join the host for a few minutes. We record the announcement and the acceptance speech and share it with you following the event. After all the category winners are annoucced the host announces the overall winner.
The overall winner is that entry which has received the highest score of all the entries. Following the awards, we will send the trophies winners logo and finalists logos to the finalists and of course celebrate the event with as much media and publicity as we can. We will feature many of the winners and judges in CXM, in case studies, in interviews, in webinars and in conferences. We hope to engage and add value to our customers all year round not just at the events.
WHAT'S NEW THIS YEAR
A fully online awards experience Open sessions plus "FASTHELP" Nominate your heroes No win no fee (well almost) A new and improved set of categories Held on 9th July Michelle Ansell will be our new Awards Chairman The Judge Club Streamlined set of 7 scoring criteria
WHY ENTER
Gain recognition for what you’ve achieved.
Hear stories of company success by attending the Open Presentations.
Raise your profile and generate PR for your company.
Increase your network, with the opportunity to connect with hundreds of professionals.
Raise staff morale by attending a fun and memorable event with the whole team.
Get feedback on your entry and improve with detailed feedback following the awards.
KEY DATES
Early bird entry deadline - 30th April 2020
Entry deadline - 15th May 2020
Finalists Announced - 29th May 2020
Early bird booking deadline - 15th June 2020
Booking deadline - 26h June 2020
Awards Finals - 9th July 2020
Who can enter the UKBA?
We welcome entries from all businesses, organisations and individuals who can demonstrate exceptional business performance and innovation - for customers, partners, suppliers or employees.
Who Wins the Awards?
Our judges recognise excellence and innovation no matter the size of the organisation. In our experience, SMEs and large corporations fare equally well in front of our panels of independent judges.
What kinds of initiatives can my company enter?
We want to hear from any company delivering outstanding business performance in their area, and who constantly strive to surpass customer expectations. From innovation to social enterprise to work environment, we welcome examples of all initiatives in business and industry.
The Journey
Guiding you through the awards journey, your dedicated awards consultant can advise you on all manner of queries: how to write your entry, how to present effectively, which award to enter, or any other questions you might have. We also provide many free resources online such as winner’s case studies, informative webinars, and our Customer Experience Magazine.
Why our Awards are Different
The UK Business Awards is run by Awards International. Founded in 2008 we’ve been encouraging and rewarding positive business practice, and doing it in a unique way for quite a while.
A large panel of independent and impartial judges - more than any other equivalent awards - give scores to the finalists on the day of the awards finals. We use transparent scoring criteria endorsed by Cranfield School of Management.
The conference-style awards are also designed to give finalists highly useful opportunities to network and share best practice ideas. The business leaders in attendance come from a diverse range of economic sectors - and this cross-fertilisation of business knowledge is extremely beneficial.
After the event, every single finalist receives a judges’ feedback report with detailed scores and comments on their entry. The fairness of this process has led to us receiving the Gold Trust Mark from the Independent Awards Standards Council.