Only One More Day to Enter Business Achievers Awards

This is (almost) the last call for the Business Achievers Awards and we want you to know that the deadline is tomorrow Midnight, Friday, September 25th.

In the last few weeks we have received several emails from people stressing about their entry; worrying about whether we received their submission or not, worrying about entering the wrong category, worrying about word count or worrying about everything else!  To all we say: Just relax!

For those that have entered, don’t worry – what’s done is done. You’re in the competition and once you’re in and you present a good business, you can win!

For those that haven’t entered yet, we say: Why not? It takes 30 minutes and you have a good amount of time left. It could make a big difference to your business success. Have you seen all the benefits you can get?

For those that think they’ve entered? Yes, there are a few out there that believe the “Register your Interest” form that they filled in a few months ago will do as a full entry….. It won’t!

You have to complete a full entry! It’s here. So, don’t worry, there’s still time.. Until this Friday Midnight.

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This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/only-one-more-day-to-enter-business-achievers-awards/ on thinkbusiness

Opportunity Not to Miss: 5 More Days to Enter Business Achievers Awards

Here are some good reasons why you might want to consider adding ‘must enter business competition’ to your ‘to do’ list!

The application process is an opportunity to reflect on what your business is all about and clearly articulate your USP.

It’s an opportunity to work on your business rather than in it by stepping back to look at achievements, challenges, market trends and areas for improvement.

As such it gives you an opportunity to dust off and update the business plan.

Competitions are also about PR, marketing, selling…spin. They’re an opportunity for you to raise the profile of the business for free. Entering the competition will get you into the local press. It’ll probably get you into the regionals and it could get your business national and even international profile.

Marketing opportunities

By working the competition – filling in the forms correctly, engaging with local Ulster Bank reps for the competition, turning up at the networking events, volunteering to give quotes and elbowing yourself into photos, you will get marketing material that’s ‘independent’ for your website and other marcomms. If you progress through the competition there are programs such as Ulster Bank’s Business Achievers Awards that produce corporate videos for all of the short listed companies. These are done by professional companies with editors and designers. You probably cannot afford to produce these yourselves! They are given to you after the competition for your website and other marketing material, and they will impress!

Let your business grow

Working the competition will also give you access to a big network of people that can help your business grow. For obvious reasons the politicans always turn up. You’ll have access to state agencies. You’ll meet all the local and national enterprise support agencies. Bankers, funders, journalists, other successful businesspeople…the big national Awards are a veritable who’s who of the great and the good in business. And you’ll be one of the stars of the show…just by entering. And if you win…!

When you sit down and take the time to apply to a competition, you’ll realize that you have a team supporting you. It illustrates the importance of the support of family and its role in moving your business forward. You’ll see the staff that have and are stepping up to the mark.

You’ll probably get your management involved. Sometimes just by reflecting and internally acknowledging what you’ve achieved together is a major win in its own right.

Superb packages

There are many different competitions out there from local and regional awards to national events. Aside from all the benefits listed above, the winners often benefit from superb packages which may include cash prizes, mentoring, free PR and much more.

Look here, we wont deny that it takes time to enter. We’ve worked with Ulster Bank in particular to get the form down to a fairly slick 20-30 minutes. But even if it takes more time, you owe it to yourself, your staff and your family to give it your best shot.

Even if you’re not short-listed you will benefit from working ‘on’ your business. You can use the knowledge to plan future strategies and identify weak areas. It’ll help you make your business stronger and better. And that’s what it all, eventually, boils down to!

The post Opportunity Not to Miss: 5 More Days to Enter Business Achievers Awards appeared first on Small Business Can.

This post was originally published here - http://www.smallbusinesscan.com/opportunity-not-to-miss-5-more-days-to-enter-business-achievers-awards/ on thinkbusiness

Sun Life Enterprise & Innovation Awards

Sun Life Financial has worked alongside Waterford Institute of Technology to promote enterprise and innovation among Computing students and this was never more evident than at the fourth annual Sun Life Enterprise & Innovation Awards.

Two outstanding students picked up the annual awards. The Innovation Award for a project that demonstrated uniqueness went to Sophie Renshaw from Charleville, Co Cork for her project ‘Deploying Openstack on Small Scale Architecture’.

The Enterprise Award for a project that demonstrated commercial potential went to Samuel Haycock from Clonmel, Co Tipperary for his QRLang project, allowing for complete games to be coded into a QR code.

Competition for the two awards was fierce with 20 projects submitted from a pool of final year honours undergraduate projects. Ten finalists invited to showcase their projects at an exhibition at Sun Life’s newly refurbished office in Waterford.

Following the exhibition, David Healy, Senior Vice President Client and Technology Services, SLF, United States, presented Sophie and Samuel each with a prize of €1,000.

Commenting at the ceremony, David Healy said, “The level of innovation and application of technology I have seen here today is outstanding and it’s only through innovation and idea generation that the global economy will continue to grow. It is really important for Sun Life to maintain and develop our links w  ith colleges such as WIT. I would like to congratulate WIT for the quality of students and projects we have seen here today and reiterate our commitment to nurture this type of innovation at the Institute. I’m looking forward to being part of this event again next year.”

Professor Willie Donnelly, President of WIT and founder of the globally renowned ICT research centre TSSG congratulated Sun Life on its courageous decision to set up in Waterford 16 years ago which has had immeasurable benefits for the city and the wider south east.

Prof Donnelly went on to say that “the institute and Sun Life have forged a deep relationship founded on strong synergies and mutual goals. Our two organisations have collaborated on multiple levels over the years at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The Masters in Communications developed collectively by WIT and Sun Life defines the industry-academic collaboration at the heart of what a technological university is about. At the centre of the programme is the concept of academic responsiveness building on the institute’s excellence in teaching and research to deliver regional economic impact.”

Karen Burns, General Manager Sun Life Waterford remarked on the standard and quality of the projects as ‘outstanding’.

Outside of these awards, Sun Life has a long standing relationship with the institute with 60% of the workforce having studied on undergraduate or postgraduate courses at some point in their career.

The successful finalists were: Samuel Haycock, Sophie Renshaw, Tony Finn, Stephen Long, Jamie Hegarty, David Ryan, Jamie Moore, Daniel Treyvaud, Eamonn Ryan and Seán Bray.

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Calling all Innovators & Entrepreneurs, we need your help & your green VOTE !!

As with any Irish technology company, we all suffer unique challenges when growing business internationally. As a country we have a small population so we struggle when trying to make as much noise as our International competitors. Even places we assume are tiny states such as Haiti & Togo have twice and three times our population.

Hence we need your help…

One of our company’s, Surface Power HONE which has developed a revolutionary “daylight” powered Nano-heat engine technology is short-listed (final 18 was judged by experts) for the 2Degrees Champions Award –  “Innovation of the Year” which is the world’s leading collaboration platform and service for sustainable business with over 46,500 members from 177 countries. https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/

Surface Power HONE has nearly 7,000 installations of this patented technology over 8 countries to date and it has been kept fairly secretive until recently. The technology was field tested in the West of Ireland & New Zealand as the daylight levels are some of the lowest in the OECD. In short, it replaces the use of oil and gas for heating and cooling with free daylight. Have a look at LIVE customers on our website such as the UK National Health Service running their hospital’s central heating on free “daylight” (sounds mad but true !!)

The next phase of the 2Degrees “Innovation of the Year Awards” is a voting stage which will reduce the final 18 to 5 for the big awards ceremony and we need your help and your vote. 

Although already in the short-list of 18, we are the only Irish Technology company in this shortlist and are up against huge players such as Nestle, General Motors & B&Q.

You can vote for us by clicking the link below to get us into the final 5 and we thank you in advance for that vote. Be sure to tweet it afterwards using the link so we can personally send you a thank you tweet. Go raibh maith agat as do chabhair.

Best Regards, John Quinn, CEO. (Twitter – @johnquinn_irl )

Read our story and VOTE from below.

https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/surface-powers-nano-engine-harvests-light-generate-heating-and-cooling/

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