2013 Business support winners announced
Kiwibank Business Markets has beaten 41 finalists to the Supreme Award at the AUT Business School’s 2013 Excellence in Business Support Awards, the only national performance measure available to the business support sector.
The award was presented on 5 September by the Hon Steven Joyce, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, at a gala dinner in Auckland attended by 700 people, including key figures from business, government and not-for-profit sectors.
Winners were announced in 11 categories, with the Supreme winner chosen from amongst them.
Dean of the AUT Business School Dr Geoff Perry says: “We congratulate all our winners and finalists who are doing a tremendous job delivering quality products and services to help New Zealand businesses maximise their potential. As a business school it’s important for us to celebrate the organisations that contribute to the economic development of our country.”
A key factor in Kiwibank Business Markets’ win was its recent campaign to treat small to medium sized businesses the same way that some banks treat large corporates.
Dr Mark Le Fevre, Head of AUT Business School’s Management Department, who led the evaluation process, says: “The quality of entries was extremely high, but there was one stand-out winner and that was Kiwibank Business Markets. If you apply management theory as it’s meant to be applied, it’ll increase your chance of success. When we evaluated Kiwibank it was very obvious that they were applying theory to practice and doing it well. They were also doing some things beyond what you’d find in academic literature – they had taken the tools and said, ‘we can do more’.”
The Individual Leadership award went to the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce
CEO Peter Townsend, who helped set up Recover Canterbury immediately after the 2010 earthquake. The organisation has supported 7000 local businesses and kept an estimated $39 million in Canterbury post-earthquake.
A new award Export Support went to intellectual property firm A J Park for helping Australasian companies to identify, develop, protect and exploit their IP rights throughout the world.
Entries were evaluated by academic staff from the Management Department of AUT Business School and Mike Watson, CEO of the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation.
Evaluators used the international Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence which assesses how effectively organisations achieve business excellence in leadership and planning, customer and market focus, provision of business support, evaluation and improvement, and business results. Evaluators also made site visits to better understand organisational culture and verify that written submissions reflected systems and processes.
The Awards, which are in their eighth year, were founded by Sarah Trotman, now Director of Business Relations at AUT Business School.
2013 Winners
Supreme Award Winner
Kiwibank Business Markets
Image Print Business under $5m turnover: Management services
Stellar Consulting Group
Idealog Business under $5m turnover: Sales & marketing
Plato Design Agency
Idealog Business under $5m turnover: Technology
Aura RedEye Security Ltd
Crowe Horwath Business $5m-$10m turnover
Key Research Group
Crowe Horwath Large business $10m-$100m turnover
Kiwibank Business Markets
Highly commended: Advanced Security
Fuji Xerox Large business $100m plus
Joint winners: ANZ Bank New Zealand Ltd, DHL Express
NZ Business Excellence Foundation Not for profit
Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce
NZ Business Excellence Foundation Not for profit large
The Marketing Association
Highly commended: KEA New Zealand
NZ Business Excellence Foundation Government
ATEED
Highly commended: CarboNZero Holdings
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Export Support
AJ Park
Fuji Xerox Leadership/Individual
Peter Townsend (Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce)
Media enquiries:
Esther Harward, Communications Manager, AUT University, phone 09 921 9688, email eharward@aut.ac.nz