Security firm with future focus takes Supreme Business Support Award
More than 600 guests from the government, academic and business sectors celebrated the winners of the 2015 AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards at a gala dinner at the Langham Hotel on 29 October.
Hon Maggie Barry spoke at the Awards, along with the Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack and Dean of the AUT Faculty of Business and Law Professor Geoff Perry. Business students Tessa Williams and Karl Schwarz also delivered speeches and Carol Hirschfeld joined Sarah Trotman as MC for the evening.
Supreme Winner - “constant growth and improvement”
Advanced Security Group was named the Supreme Award winner and also won the IBM $5M - $20M turnover category award. (See below for a full list of category winners).
“Advanced Security Group has consistently produced an excellent set of financial results over a sustained period, with strong growth in revenue, profits and capital. A detailed business plan identifies key results areas and key performance indicators which are communicated to all staff. The company’s information systems allow them to instantly track performance in both breadth and depth. They continue to impress as a company that wishes to extend itself through constant growth and improvement in business support,” said category evaluator and senior lecturer in management at AUT, Dr Roy Smollan.
Diverse business support
The AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards celebrate excellence across ten diverse business support sectors ranging from technology and export support to not for profit, government and sales and marketing.
The importance of business support
“These Awards are important to AUT because they allow us to recognise the best providers of business support in New Zealand. Business support organisations and individuals make a significant but often unseen contribution to the performance of businesses, helping behind the scenes with everything from dispute resolution, research and legal services to security, compliance and logistics. This celebration of the business support sector is a great opportunity for the AUT Business and Law Schools to join with the business community and celebrate excellence,” said Professor Geoff Perry, Dean of the AUT Faculty of Business and Law.
Ten years of excellence
The Awards, founded by AUT Business School’s Director of Business Relations and Executive Education Sarah Trotman, are now in their tenth year. They are the only national performance measure for New Zealand organisations that provide business support. Applications are judged by evaluators from the AUT Business School with oversight from the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation.
The 2015 Awards were sponsored by ICG, Fuji Xerox, Drake New Zealand, Idealog, CPA Australia, the Institute of Management New Zealand, IBM and the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation.
2015 AUT Excellence in Business Support Winners
Supreme Award Winner
Advanced Security Group
Category Award Winners
IMNZ Business < $5M T/O Management Services
Joint Winner: New Zealand Dispute Resolution Centre
Joint Winner: Altris Limited
ICG Business < $5M T/O Sales & Marketing
Perceptive Research
Idealog Business < $5M T/O Technology (non-cloud)
Pure SEO
Idealog Business < $5M T/O Technology (cloud)
GeoOp
IBM Business $5M - $20M T/O
Advanced Security Group
Fuji Xerox Business $20M+ T/O
Netlogix
New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation Not for Profit
Winner: Tourism Industry Association New Zealand
Highly Commended: The Arbitrators' and Mediators' Institute of New Zealand
Drake New Zealand Government
Winner: Business.govt.nz (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment)
Highly Commended: Plant & Food Research
AUT International Business Export Support
AJ Park
Fuji Xerox Leadership
Stefan Preston (Ingenio)