Local businesses shine with success

The resilience of North Shore and Rodney businesses is obvious as their successes shine through the 2010 business awards.

By close of application last week 144 entries has been received from businesses across the region for the 13th annual Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards.

“We are delighted at the response to this year’s awards,” says Terry Hoskins, chief executive of Enterprise North Shore. “It’s been a challenging couple of years for businesses, so it is reassuring that so many are poised to share their success stories with the local community.”

This year’s entries are wowing organisers with the breadth of businesses abilities across the board.

“As exporting is a major catalyst for economic growth, it’s an extremely positive sign that entries in the Spyglass Excellence in Exporting category have doubled on previous years,” says Mr Hoskins. “It’s also encouraging that we are seeing an equal spread in the number of entries across many of the categories, which shows that during the recession enterprises have been proactively improving their efficiency levels right across the business.”

Businesses are obviously offering exceptional customer service, employing kiwi innovation and marketing themselves well which shows in three of the bigger categories for 2010 - Ingram Micro Excellence in Service Delivery, 3M Excellence in Innovation, and Actionmail Excellence in Marketing.

Ian Blair, general manager business banking for Westpac, primary awards sponsor, is impressed with the scope of the pool of entries this year. “It is incredible to see the resilience of local businesses reflected in the number of awards entries. They have all weathered the recession and are now looking to the future and to seize burgeoning growth. Westpac is proud to support these businesses and many more just like them in the community.”

The annual Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards are designed to promote, encourage, support and celebrate business excellence on the North Shore and Rodney. Entrants can enter up to three of the 12 categories, including North Shore Times Excellence in Not-For-Profit, Smales Farm Excellence in Technology and more.

In addition, the Enterprise North Shore Committed Optimist award will be presented to a business whose optimism shines through in their awards entry.

Finalists will be announced on 23 July, with the winners unveiled at a Gala Dinner at the North Shore Events Centre on 3 September, 2010.

Read more about the awards