Sam and Harry walked away with the award for most original business concept.

Others highlighted include Daniel Ox of Fruit for the Office who transformed his family-run stall into an online e-commerce platform delivering fresh fruit and veg to office workers.  Daniel won young entrepreneur of the year.

The award for best female entrepreneur went to Sara Murray of Buddi the globally successful business Buddi which manufactures small GPS personal trackers, while best male entrepreneur went to Mitesh Soma of Chemist Direct who we’ve already featured here at SmallBizPod.

More details of the exhibition and the awards, run by BT Business can be found here.

The Fast Growth Business Awards

First off, if your business is expanding, has had £1 million plus turnover in the year to end December 2009 and has fewer than 500 employees, then the Fast Growth Business Awards are for you.

The panel of judges includes online Dragon, Julie Meyer, and King of Shaves entrepreneur Will King. Categories to enter include Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Social Enterprise of the Year and Family Business of the Year.

Further details on how to enter the awards can be found here. Closing date 22nd January 2010.

The Smarta 100

Dragon Deborah Meaden, Bebo Founder Michael Birch and our friends at Smarta.com are seeking the UK’s smartest businesses to be recognised in the inaugural Smarta 100 list.

Any business doing something unique, disruptive, innovative or making a special contribution to their local communities can enter.

Your business must be privately owned in the UK employing fewer than 50 people. The smartest 100 will be announced during February, so get your entries in now.

Manufacturing Excellence Awards

If you run a manufacturing business, then these awards held by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers are for you.

Recognising the very best in British manufacturing, categories include awards for customer focus, small to medium-sized business of the year, sustainable manufacturing and process innovation.

Entries can be submitted online. Closing date 31 January 2010.

[Picture credit: notsogoodphotography licenced from Flickr]

Congratulations to the overall startup of the year, Three Sixty Entertainment, and to all the other category winners and finalists.

Green Business of the Year: Shiply.com

Online Business of the Year: Wonga

Product of the Year: trueCall

Business Plan of the Year: Get Set Schools

Service Business of the Year: The Pathology Group

Adversity Business of the Year: Mobility Buy

Innovative Business of the Year: Three Sixty Entertainment

Social Enterprise of the Year: Goodwill Solutions CIC

Women in Business: Natasha Courtenay-Smith – Talk To The Press

Silver Fox Award: Go Sustainable – Franz Hutcheson

Best Use of Technology: JAOtech

A good crop of startups.  Congratulations to one and all.

The Orange Leader of the Year
Winner: Peter Marks

The 3i Private Business of the Year
Winner: T J Morris

The Coutts & Co Large-Cap Business of the Year
Winner: Inmarsat

The Grant Thornton Mid-Cap Business of the Year
Winner: ASOS

The Daily Telegraph Decade of Excellence Award
Winner: Sir Philip Hampton

The Better Regulation Award
Winner: Environment Agency

The Award goes to the organisation that is making the biggest difference by helping businesses comply with the law as simply as possible, delivering better outcomes and creating a more effective operating environment for UK businesses through better regulation practices.

The Customer Focus Award
Winner: DPD

This Award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate that it has the customer at the heart of its business and deploys and manages its resources to most effectively meet the needs of its customer base.

The Employer of the Year Award
Winner: Cirrus Communication Systems

This Award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate how, through well-adopted company values, the provision of stimulating and supportive workplaces and the active development of all employees it has applied its human and supporting resources to achieve commercial success.

The Entrepreneur of the Year Award
Winner: Sarah Murray of buddi

This Award will go to the outstanding individual who can best demonstrate exceptional vision and leadership in the establishment and development of an owner-led business.

The Business Link Growth Strategy of the Year Award
Winner: dotDigital Group

This Award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate an organic growth strategy (rather than merger & acquisition activity) that has achieved outstanding levels of sales, profit and market share improvement.

The Health Work and Wellbeing Award
Winner: Crown Spa Hotel

This award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate how it has improved the health and wellbeing of its workforce to the benefit of the organisation.

The ICAEW Corporate Responsibility Award
Winner: Framptons

This award will go to the organisation that can best demonstrate a company-wide commitment to Corporate Responsibility.

The IMechE Business Innovation of the Year Award
Winner: Addison Lee

This Award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate a proven ability to create, nurture, and develop innovations or processes that substantially improve the commercial performance or prospects of the company.

The Marketing Strategy of the Year Award
Winner: HM Revenue & Customs

This Award is made for a specific marketing campaign that has achieved high levels of commercial success for the relevant product or service.

The Orange Best Use of Technology in Business Award
Winner: Forensic Pathways & Cambridge Constabulary

This Award goes to the organisation that can best demonstrate that it has effectively used business technology to create a significant and exploitable competitive or operational advantage in any business area including revenue, improved quality and/or customer convenience.

The Santander Small to Medium Sized Business of the Year Award
Winner: Go Ape!

Open to organisations with less than £10 million turnover in their last financial year, this Award goes to the company that best demonstrates significant growth and innovation in its market sector, under-pinned by strong financial performance.

This year’s awards highlight four main categories, ‘Home Business of the Year’, ‘Home Business Couple of the Year’, ‘Home Office of the Year’, ‘Young Home Business Owner of the Year’.

A new category introduced in 2009 focuses on everyone building a business from home in their spare time – the so-called 5 to 9ers.

Winners will be announced at the Enterprise Nation Conference on Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20th November.

The deadline for Home Business Awards entries is Friday 6th November.

Other winners include the very well known, but astonishingly young (considering what he’s achieved at just 20) Fraser Doherty of SuperJams who clinched the best entrepreneur award and James Taylor whose business SportStars was named best small business of the year.

Robert Mattham’s startup Shiply.com is perhaps the most innovative and interesting of the bunch.

He discovered that 25% of lorries on British roads run empty every day estimated to be 36 million tonnes of unnecessary CO2 pumped into the atmosphere each year.

Shiply.com, an online transport marketplace, attempts to improve this environmentally damaging situation by allowing users to list goods and eBay items requiring transport which are then bid on by a pool of 3,500 hauliers who may already be making similar delivery trips.

If you’ve ever used a supermarket home delivery service, you’ll know that you can select delivery times to match hours when the delivery van is already in your area. It’s a similar kind of principle.

Robert plans to expand the site to Australia later this year, having already received over 23,000 shipping requests.

Fraser Doherty set up his business, SuperJams, making jam at his grandmother’s kitchen table when he was just 14. Six years on and Fraser’s jam is stocked in all the major supermarkets, selling over 500,000 jars a year.

Finally, James Taylor’s SportStars, which won small business of the year, was set up to provide UK children with quality sports coaching as part of schools’ PE curriculum.

In its first year SportStars grew its school contracts from 5 to 30 and has also developed a subsidiary brand, SuperStars, which aims to provide a similar service for children interested in developing their arts skills.

All in all some great winners and inspiration to the one in four young men who say they would like to start their own business according to YouGov research.

The only question we have about the awards is whether the judges had a predilection for sibilant small businesses?

The Next Big Thing category is for businesses or organisations who have conducted research and development into an innovative product, but have yet to fully commercialise it.

The other category which may be perfect for smaller businesses, is the Best British Inside category.  This will focus on businesses or organisations whose innovation created a breakthrough which forms a central element of the success of any other company around the world.

The closing date for entries is 16th September.

Full details on how to throw your hat into the ring can be found can be found on the iawards how to enter pages.

The full list is as follows:

Animal Spirits
George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller (Princeton University Press)

Clever
Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones (Harvard Business Press)

Free
Chris Anderson (Random House UK, Hyperion Books USA)

Good Value
Stephen Green (Penguin Press UK, Grove/Atlantic USA)

House of Cards
William D. Cohan (Penguin Press UK, Doubleday USA)

How the Mighty Fall
Jim Collins (Random House UK, HarperCollins USA)

Imagining India
Nandan Nilekani (Allen Lane UK, Penguin USA)

In Fed We Trust
David Wessel (Crown Business)

Lords of Finance
Liaquat Ahamed (Cornerstone, Random House UK, Penguin Press USA)

The Match King
Frank Partnoy (Profile Books UK, Public Affairs USA)

The Myth of the Rational Market
Justin Fox (HarperCollins)

SuperCorp
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Profile Books UK, Random House USA)

This Time is Different
Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff (Princeton University Press)

Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal
Tristram Stuart (Penguin Press UK, WW Norton & Co USA )

Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller
Jeff Rubin (Virgin Books UK, Random House USA)

As ever, any SmallBizPod listeners who’d like to contribute a book review to the podcast, perhaps even one or two from the above list, please get in touch. We’ve had some exceptional contributions so far.

Entry forms can be downloaded from the Queen’s Awards website and should be submitted by 2pm on 30 October 2009.

Any UK-based business with two or more employees demonstrating outstanding and sustained commercial success can enter the awards which have three categories: International Trade, Innovation, and Sustainable Development.

From 20th July nominations are also being sought for The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion (QAEP).

These Awards recognise individuals who have found inspiring ways to encourage UK entrepreneurship.

Here’s a quick round up of a few you might want to think about entering or voting in.

First off there’s the annual O2 X awards for UK businesses with 1-50 employees that have done something daring, different or unique. Details online from the above link with a closing date of 1 August 2009.

Next up there’s the Techcrunch Europas, a celebration for all things web startup throughout Europe on which you can vote. If you want to vote for your favourite be quick, as winners are announced next Wednesday 9 July.

For businesses with an eye on international trade with China there’s the Cathay Pacific China Business Awards. These aim to recognise successful British businesses in the region. Entries to be submitted online by 31 October 2009.

Finally bringing awards right back down to a local level, we’ve just heard about the Martin & Audrey Wood Enterprise Awards launched by Oxford Innovation. The awards celebrate hi-tech startups in Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley. To enter or nominate a company before the closing date of 15 September 2009, head to the above link.

We’re great believers in recognising success here at SmallBizPod, so if you know of other awards we should be highlighting, do get in touch.

[Picture credit: terren in Virginia licenced from Flickr]

One of the recipients, for his work in promoting entrepreneurship, was Jamie Murray-Wells on a day when the company he founded, Glasses Direct, announced it had secured £10 million in additional investment for expansion into the US.

All in all a good day for the young entrepreneur, but also for all those who received Royal recognition for their own business success or achievements in encouraging others on their own entrepreneurial journey.

2009 has proved to be a record year for the Queen’s Awards. A total of 194 businesses and individuals receiving the honour, the highest number in the Awards’ 44 year history.

Of these 135 were given to companies in the international trade category, 49 for innovation and 10 for sustainable development.

The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion was given to a further 11 individuals – the prestigious lifetime achievement award going to Professor Allan Gibb former director of the small business centre at the University of Durham.

A recent survey of previous winners reveals the business benefits of the awards:

77% of winners reported the win had brought added commercial value to their business;

73% of winners saw employee engagement rise;

73% of winners gained extra press coverage;

85% of winners said the impact of winning a Queen’s Award met or exceeded their expectations;

57% of International Trade winners experienced increased recognition overseas.

The finalists include:

Cath Kidston, founder of the eponymous fabrics, wallpaper and furniture design business;

Gail Rebuck, ceo of The Random House Group one of the largest UK publishing companies;

Harriet Green, ceo of Premier Farnell, a business she turned around and which now generates revenues of £800 million a year;

Kate Bleasdale, vice chairman of AIM listed Healthcare Locums, and recognised as one of the most successful entrepreneurs behind a growing company, and finally;

Ruby McGregor Smith, chief executive of strategic outsourcing company MITIE Group which she has helped grow to be a £1.4 billion turnover business.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony set to take place at the Saatchi Gallery on 28th April.

The Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 competition has a prize fund of €150,000 and builds on the successful event piloted in The Netherlands last year.

A geo-locational social networking service, NuLaz, that mashed up Facebook and Googlemaps to help people find their friends while on the move was one of the winners in 2008.

The competition will comprise three selection rounds running from April to September 2009, with a panel of mobile expert judges deciding a winner sometime in September.

To enter visit the Vodafone Mobile Clicks website.

Spring seems to be a good time to launch competitions for SMEs. Here are the latest we’ve heard about.

First off is the First Women Awards 2009 which celebrates ‘genuine glass ceiling breakers’ – so not strictly speaking a competition for female entrepreneurs, but certainly one worth entering, if you are.

It’s backed by the CBI, Lloyds TSB and the PM’s wife Sarah Brown.  Closing date for entries is 27 March, so get your skates on, although I’m sure they’ll accept submissions a few days after the deadline.

Next up is the Nectar Business Small Business Awards with three categories: Small Business of the Year, Startup of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year. Winners will earn themselves £2,000 plus 50,000 nectar points.

Closing date for entries is 18th May 2009.

Finally, last but not least and with the biggest value prize fund of £25,000 of IT equipment is the Dell Small Business Excellence Awards supported by the British Chambers of Commerce.

The awards aim to recognise the best use of technology by a small business and while there will be a UK winner is also open to SMEs in various other countries around the world.

Closing date for entries in 3 April 2009.

[Picture credit: Adam Pniak licenced from Flickr]

Among the successful entrepreneurs are an ex-lawyer with a fresh line of Indian sauces, the founder of an online custom-made shoe shop and a 25 year old with global ambitions to change the world of graduate recruitment.

Priya Lakhani (27) of Masala Masala clinched first place in the ‘business’ category.  Priya only set up her authentic indian sauces company last year, having quit her job as a lawyer, and is already seeing her products stocked by major retailers in over 30 countries around the world.

Adam Duffy (26) walked away with the ‘creative’ category award for Looks Can Kill, his online business that allows customers to, well, customise a pair of trainers with their own designs.  A kind of Moo cards for shoes.

Global category winner was Lucian Tarnowski (25) of BraveNewTalent which is already making great strides to turn the world of graduate recruitment on its head, has offices in London and India and aims to have partners in 192 different countries.

Winner of the social and community category was Kerry Kolbe (30) whose business Signal Films provides free opportunities for young people in Cumbria to get involved in film and digital technologies.

And ‘Teen’ winner was Matt Lovett (17) who runs a very successful internet marketing group called WOW Media, based in Birmingham with 5 employees.

Finally, winner of the ‘people’s choice’ awards was Dean Rhodes-Brandon (17) whose Your Local Cinema is a not-for-profit website that helps hearing or visually impaired people get the most from the cinema.

More details on all the finalists and winners can be found at Make Your Mark’s Enterprising Young Brits website.

The competition run by Make Your Mark for the Department for Business sets out to find the town, city, village or location that is forging ahead with innovation, creating new jobs and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Last year Scarborough won the competition, thanks in part to a coalition of local businesses, councillors and residents who formed the Scarborough Renaissance Partnership which helped to transform the fortunes of the seaside town.

The Partnership attracted over £200 million of private sector investment to the area, helped to create a local start-up boom, regenerated the harbour and helped move the town forward positively as the fishing industry declined.

Here at SmallBizPod we’ve always believed job creation and the regeneration of local economies is a fundamental benefit of a more entrepreneurial society.

Projects like the Inner City 100 awards which recognised successful businesses in deprived city areas a few years ago, began raising the profile of this subject.

It’s good to see Enteprising Britain continuing that tradition.

As Peter Mandelson said at the launch today:

Enterprise is a long-term investment for the future and crucial for success in the current economic climate. In a downturn, it is more important than ever that entrepreneurs are supported and have the confidence they need to develop their ideas.

The competition is free to enter and forms are available from Regional Development Agencies, from equivalent devolved authorities or downloadable from http://www.enterprisingbritain.org/.

All entries need to be completed and returned by 30 April 2009.

[Picture: MaryCB licenced from Flickr]

The Make Your Mark in the Mall competition gives budding retailers the chance to trade for free from what’s known as a ‘Retail Merchandising Unit’ (RMU) or what we might describe as a ‘stall’.

These stalls are situated in 20 shopping centres owned by The Mall around the UK.

If you have an existing business plan you want to put into practice or are already running a business, but want to test your products in a retail environment, this could be useful whether or not you end up winning.

The competition takes place in two stages.  Entrants must first submit a business plan.

The best will then be allocated an RMU and whoever achieves the most successful results in the eyes of judges including Apprentice winner Tim Campbell will walk away with a retail start-up pack which will include:

• six months free trading on an RMU;
• support from The Mall;
• free business banking from sponsors RBS and NatWest;
• a place on a retailing summer school run by the British Shops and Stores Association, and;
• £1,000 in cash.

If you want to take part, make sure you get your entry in before 15th February.

[Photo caption: .Martin. licenced from Flickr]

After completing a quick online entry form, participants in the awards will simply need to pitch to a Dragon’s Den style panel to see themselves well on the way to winning.

The Kent Innovation Challenge is now in its sixth year and previous winners include Oil Drum which impressed the judges with its new hydrogen fuel efficiency technology.

Darryl Watts, one of the founders of Oil Drum, said:

Since winning the award Oil Drum has moved forward very quickly – our technology is being used by a number of road hauliers and they are already seeing dividends.

Entries for the awards close on Friday 20 February 2009 and the panel of Dragon’s will make their judgement on 2 March 2009.

The East London Small Business Centre (ELSBC) has been leading enterprise support in under-privileged communities in East London for 30 years.

During that time it has helped develop 10,000 new and established SMEs and has lent more than £10 million to businesses that might otherwise have found it impossible to secure funding.

It’s not the first time the ELSBC has been recognised for its work.  Deputy chief executive Pauline Barnett recently received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion, acknowleding her work in promoting enterprise skills and attitudes.

[Picture credit: PhillipC licenced from Flickr]

The Awards bring together top African businesses, investors, policy makers and the press to recognise some of the outstanding achievements of entrepreneurs on the continent.

The Pioneers of Prosperity programme was set up by Michael Fairbanks, the co-founder of the S.E.VEN fund which aims to help end global poverty through entrepreneurship.

It is hoped the African awards, which saw 10 companies competing including four lead by female entrepreneurs, will highlight successes and inspire a new generation of business people.

And as Alan McCormick one of the judging panel says, echoing Barrack Obama:

They are an inspiration to anyone in Africa who may be wondering if they can succeed in business. The answer is: yes, you can.

From old ladies enjoying African drumming to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds rolling gnocchi in Jamie Oliver inspired restaurant Fifteen, the photographs bring to life social enterprise in the UK on a day dedicated to the sector as part of Enterprise Week.

Beating the drum for social enterprise

The awards held by the Social Enterprise Coalition were presented by Kevin Brennan, minister for the Third Sector and judged by the Coalition’s social enterprise ambassadors.

The winning photo of silver-haired African drumming was taken by a staff mentor at Upstream, a Devon social enterprise that aims to overcome social exclusion among older people in rural communities.

The ladies pictured include a former local teacher, a farmer and a former pub landlady.

Simon Goodenough, director of Upstream, said:

The award highlights the huge value of a stimulating and creative approach to genuine social enterprise, in which people take control of their own health and happiness, and in which local solutions are seen to be the answer in tackling much wider issues.

The runner-up photo was taken by David Kapay a former sous-chef at Fifteen London.

Both photographs will be featured in the next edition of the Big Issue and will also take their place as gallery exhibits in January at London’s Contemporary Urban Centre.

KashFlow, created by Duane Jackson in 2005, was also the only ‘cloud computing’ offering listed in the awards category.  This seems to highlight that small businesses are keen to adopt software as a service offerings.

The win also appears to suggest that traditional desktop applications from large players Sage, Quickbooks and MYOB are not catering effectively to a significant proportion of the SME sector.

Sift Media, the award organisers, claim that KashFlow has 70% of the cloud computing market for accounting software in the UK.

Voted on by over 5,000 business owners and those responsible for purchasing business software, the awards are recognised as reflecting the views of real companies, rather than just a panel of judges.

On winning, Duane Jackson said:

We believe that online access to accounting software is revolutionising the way businesses look after their finances. In another couple of years web-based software will be the norm, not the exception. Unless they evolve, and quickly, companies like Sage will be the past not the future.

Among the youngest to be named a finalist is Becky Benfield who set up her model horse website, Utterly Horses, when she was only 16.  It’s now become one of the leading sites of its kind with strong sales.

Others to be nominated include Jennifer Irvine of Pure Package (prevously interviewed on SmallBizPod) who has built up her healthy meals on wheels to the stars business rapidly and now employs 25 people.

Karen Gill, co-founder of Everywoman, said:

All of the finalists are shining examples of women who have achieved great success, regardless of what life has thrown at them, and it’s fantastic to be able to celebrate their triumphs.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at London’s Dorchester Hotel on 3 December 2008.

Chris developed the product for a Saudi Arabian contract while on a work placement at Leicester-based resistor manufacturer Cressall Resistors.  He also developed a new process which is set to save Cressall up to £6,000 a month thanks to increased communications efficiencies.

On winning the award Chris said:

Winning this award is just the icing on the cake of what has been a fantastic experience.  My placement at Cressall taught me so much about the practical application of skills and knowledge in a real world environment.

By placing students in small and medium sized businesses Shell Step is designed to give UK students the experience they need to make the move into work a smooth one.

The participating SMEs also say they benefit from the skills that student placements can bring to their business.  Clearly something that was true in the case of Cresall’s and Chris Haigh.

The winner of the Award will receive £1,000 and a breakfast business mentoring session with an entrepreneur of their choice including Dame Mary Perkins of Specsavers and Sahar Hashemi of Coffee Republic.

Judges will be taking into account the following criteria in coming to a decision on finalists:

• friendliness – being approachable, non patronising, non judgmental and empathetic;
• helpfulness – providing useful, valuable advice and support;
• timeliness – being flexible and respectful of the “mentees” time and commitments.

To nominate a mentor head over to the registration page. Winners will be announced later this year.

The ten finalists are:

• Pat Clarke Total Training, Lincoln, England – providing training, support and consultancy to healthcare and social service businesses
• Sandmere Practice, London, England – offering primary healthcare services to its patients
• Mantle Panel Ltd, Walton-On-Thames, England – developing energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly building solutions for UK homes
• 9-20 Recruitment, Glasgow, Scotland – delivering a highly specialised IT recruitment service across all business sectors
• Eurotech Monitoring Services, London, England – providing security devices, alarms, patrols and services
• Wiggly Wigglers, Hereford, England – creating gardens of the future through combining natural beauty and environmental sustainability
• Kids Review, Kent, England – offering a website which enables children to add, edit and share their own reviews of books they have read, within a safe and managed environment
• Crown Fitness Club, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales – providing fitness equipment in a friendly surrounding for its members
• Labels4Kids, Stirling, Scotland – offering personalised labels for children to attach to a range of clothing and accessories
• Masters Traditional Games, St Albans, England – offering high quality traditional board and table games

These include a former SmallBizPod interviewee Hether Gorringe from Wiggly Wigglers.

The deadline for the 2009 Awards is midnight on 31 October 2008 and applications can be made on-line at www.queensawards.org.uk.

Businesses can enter any of three categories in the awards: innovation, international trade, and sustainable development.

As well as recognising successful businesses, there are also awards for individuals who have done important work to inspire entrepreneurship in the UK.

The awards are open to women from any sector or discipline.  Former winners have included Elle Macpherson and Dame Stella Rimmington as well as Dame Mary Perkins, co-founder of Specsavers.

The awards are free to enter.  Applications can be made online at www.everywoman.com and the closing date for entries is 29 August 2008.

Greenbank manager director, Charles Conroy, said:

We believe the recognition and visibility that the award brings will help us make further in-roads into addressing climate change issues within the power generation industry across the globe.

Charles was one of the team to undertake a management buy-out of the company 10 years ago. Part of an international group, the company counts Eon, Scottish Power, NPower and Corus among its customers.

Winners could receive up to £25,000 worth of Dell technology and services and will join 10 other national winners from around the world for a global version of the awards.

Businesses wishing to enter must have fewer than 100 employees and must be able to demonstrate they have used technology in innovative ways in order to improve the experience of their customers.

Further details can be found on the Dell website.  Closing date for entries is 31 May 2008.