The Agile Business Awards – March 2023

The Value of the Awards

A chance to showcase your organisation’s success with Agile and receive free feedback from industry experts on your achievements, followed by a virtual 2-day conference of celebration and shared experience.

Industry Awards have always been around, but not like this. The Agile Business Awards offer many innovations compared with more traditional awards:

• There is no cost to apply.
• They are virtual and therefore international.
• The awards are designed to shine a light on the effective use of Agile practices within organisations, and not to promote a particular framework.
• There are no winners and no losers. Instead, the awards give recognition to several organisations equally, for excellence in applying agility and agile principles.
• It is not just about IT; the focus is on key business areas: HR; Finance; Marketing; and the whole organisation. This clear business focus highlights the fact that, in a complex world, Agility is a necessity throughout the organisation.

The awards are given on the assessment of expert reviewers, not judges. These industry experts will give feedback, pointers, and ideas to the organisations chosen for recognition. The intent is not to look for complete success or a final result, but to reward steps taken to build the connectivity and responsiveness needed for business agility. 

There is no cash prize or trophy. However, organisations will be invited to showcase their achievements at the Agile Business Awards Conference in March 2023. The conference will combine live and recorded sessions to allow for different time zones. This will give organisations the opportunity to hear the experiences and successes of others in their field and gather ideas for their own improvement.

What does it mean to be Agile in key business Functions?

Agility in Finance

Achieving Agility in Finance requires a blend of compliance and reporting with an Agile mindset of creativity, collaboration, empowerment, and trust. It is essential to sustain the governance of financial reporting and control, whilst making room for innovation in the face of constant change and uncertainty. Contrary to some beliefs, Agile is, in fact, a well-controlled environment, with its transparency, inspection and adaptation, plus the short timeframes (sprints) in which to assess real progress and results.

In an Agile culture: risk to the business is controlled; regulatory compliance is assured and visible; and a robust legal framework protects third-party relationships.

Agility in HR

High levels of employee engagement bring profit to a business. Agility in HR focuses on: effective collaboration in operations; making space to develop talent and creativity; empowering teams to self-manage; and promoting a culture of innovation. Agility in HR will promote a safe-to-fail environment, where the psychological safety of individuals is protected and creativity can flourish.

Agility in Marketing

Agile Marketing is about keeping up with the speed and complexity of changing markets, services and products by adopting new ways of working.

In a world of disruptive behaviour from new entrants into established markets, no established company is safe to rest on past successes.

To quote Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001:

“If the rate of change on the outside [of an organisation] exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

If organisations don’t innovate, and innovate quickly, they become obsolete. Agility is the key to the rapid innovation they need.

Business Agility

Business Agility is an organisation-wide, human-centred, capability that enables an organisation to deliver value in a world of ever-increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It is achieved by inspiring and harnessing the collaborative creativity of the people in the organisation.

This involves an organisation’s culture, leadership approach, strategy, and governance supporting and promoting an Agile culture. The Agile organisation can adapt quickly to political, economic, sociological, and technological changes, both internally and externally. It can deliver value with speed, quality, and flexibility to meet customer needs.

Why are Awards Important?

Here are a few of the reasons why seeking recognition for your organisation is beneficial:

1. Awards give the impetus to pause and reflect on what has been achieved. This reflection and retrospection will help future improvement.
2. Awards give an independent assessment of our success as an organisation, with respect to others in the same field, which boosts credibility and reputation.
3. Awards provide comparison and baselining of our achievements with other organisations in our industry in a way not open to the organisation to do for itself.
4. Awards boost staff morale and motivation, as the organisation is given recognition and employees’ hard work is recognised at the same time. Motivated employees will be more productive, and this will show in the results they bring to the business.
5. Awards help with talent acquisition; the publicity of an award will attract people to work for the organisation.
6. Awards help you to improve your products or services, as motivated staff are more productive, creative, and committed.
7. Awards are free marketing for business products or services.
8. Awards create credibility in the market, sending the signal that others regard the business highly to not only your customers, but your suppliers, partners, and shareholders.
9. Gaining an award in your industry is a differentiating factor by itself. It shows you are not just the same as your competitors.
10. If you are part of an Awards ceremony, you will have great networking opportunities which can open doors to new customers, suppliers, and partners.

Conclusion

Being a part of the Agile Business Awards provides you and your business with a whole host of benefits. If you are too late to apply this year, come along to the 2-day virtual event on 22-23 March 2023 to hear the stories and learnings shared by other organisations – and perhaps even pick up some tips for your entry for next year!