Workshops help polish up for enterprise awards

Enterprise agencies around the country offer workshops and tutoring to help local firms put their best foot forward in the annual business excellence awards.

Enterprising Manukau runs workshops and aligns its local awards with the global Baldrige quality model.

"This is quite a complex system and the purpose of the workshops is to assist businesses entering to understand the Baldrige model and marking schedule," marketing manager Craig Montgomery said.

The Baldrige performance excellence programme is part of the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology and is aimed at enhancing the competitiveness and productivity of US organisations.

Enterprise North Shore prefers to give its local SMEs a general overview at two functions and then work with them one-on-one.

Manager Ngaio Merrick said it consistently received feedback the process of entering was useful.

"They say, 'it was great to get the judge's feedback because they're the external guru consultants'," she said.

Julie Stevens, business awards and networks co-ordinator at Waitakere Enterprise, runs a two-stage process - a tutorial, where a judge and a past winner offer help, and a more intense second stage at which two judges give advice.

She also offers weekly tips. "I'm available to take them through, have a read of their entries."

Henderson flexible packaging supplier Hi-Tech Packaging did the Waitakere workshops last year, when it was a finalist, and this year when it took out the Best Mid-Sized Business award.

The workshops were helpful, director Kerry Renwick said.

Stage two focuses on helping businesses identify their sustainable competitive edge. That's where the winners are decided, they were told.

For Renwick a key lesson was in providing the judges with examples of what the business claimed to be achieving. "They don't want the warm and fuzzies, they want the concrete evidence."

Steve Jurkovich, regional manager northern for Westpac Business Banking, said it could get lonely as a business owner.

"This a chance to really sit down with business advisers - bankers when you're not looking at borrowing money, lawyers when you're not looking to do a deal."

There had been a two-fold increase in the number of entries in the past two years and a rise in the number of businesses entering more than one category, he said.

He conceded SMEs still faced a challenge in getting banks to lend to them in the current environment.

Banks wanted real clarity about what the business is trying to achieve, along with robust systems.

"We're certainly trying to do everything we can to support them, but we do acknowledge that people at that end of the business spectrum can find it tough going."