To encourage and reward the establishment of successful new businesses. Open to businesses established within the last five years (operating since January 2005) that have continued to progress against their plans and have developed a clear commercial understanding of their products, competitors and markets. 

The successful entrant will be able to demonstrate:

• The overall trend in sales turnover and profit development, including how your sales turnover and profit has developed and an explanation of the key events that have led to any changes.
• The main objectives for your business over the next three years, how these will be achieved and the effect on the overall business.
• The methods of measuring business performance against your vision and business objectives and key events that have affected changes in the company’s financial growth.
• The reasons why you think your business stands out from the competition e.g. products, services, customer care, price, etc. and what you consider your one competitive advantage to be.
• How a specific strategy (please give only one example) has driven growth in your business, the growth achieved and the main impact that the strategy has had on the business.

• A track record in starting and running a business or businesses.
• The performance of the current business including sales and profit growth.
• Strategic vision for the business.
• Commercial acumen and the ability to motivate utilising leadership skills, enterprise and integrity.
• Please provide one example and evidence how your actions have been instrumental to the success of the business, such as financial success, staff motivation and development, customer development and retention, supplier relationships, operations and efficiency, community based/environmental schemes.

• Details of the customer service initiative, including objectives, investment and success introduced in the last 12 months.
• Details of your company’s approach and commitment to providing customer service.
• Evidence of a successful response to the initiative by customers and staff.

Once short-listed a visit/call to experience the customer service may be undertaken.

Entries in all categories will automatically be considered for this overall award; there is no separate entry unless it is the only category you wish to be considered for.  This Award will go to the outstanding organisation that has best demonstrated exceptional financial returns, strong growth and innovation strategies, plus market leadership in its sector.

Judges will also want to know about successful outcomes against objectives and an entrepreneurial approach to developing new business ideas to ensure continued growth and sustainability.

The winner will be the business most able to demonstrate:

• All-round achievement and how your sales turnover and profit has developed and the key events that have led to any changes.
• The main objectives for your business over the next three years, how these will be achieved and the effects that these will have on the overall business.
• A clear vision for the future of your specific business objectives for the next twelve months and how you anticipate they will be achieved and your methods for measuring performance against these objectives.
• Reasons why you think your business stands out from the competition, e.g. product, service, price, customer care, what you consider your one competitive advantage to be and how your business performance compares to the competition.
• How specific strategies have driven growth and how this will be sustained for the future.