Today we are excited to reveal the shortlists for the first-ever SmartCompany Resilience Awards.
Since SmartCompany first began in 2007, we have come together as a community each year to celebrate the annual Smart50 Awards, recognising the fastest-growing SMEs across the country.
It’s a history we’re immensely proud of and our Smart50 alumni have achieved considerable success (and continue to do so).
We took a break from the awards in 2019 and had planned to bring them back bigger than ever in 2020. Until COVID-19 hit.
As the year progressed, and we saw each day the toll the pandemic was taking on businesses across the country, it no longer felt right to present an awards program that was focused on financial growth.
We started to see business growth in different, more complex ways. We understood that for businesses simply trying to survive, growth didn’t have to only mean earning more revenue.
So we decided to do things a little differently and launched the inaugural SmartCompany Resilience Awards.
We wanted to celebrate the businesses that withstood the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and spotted new opportunities; that deepened their ties to their communities; that put their people first.
To say that we’ve been overwhelmed by the responses would be an understatement. The 130 entries we received were brimming with honesty, passion and integrity, and painted a unique picture of what it meant to be in business this year.
Perhaps it’s a reflection of the collective experience of 2020, or the fact that we didn’t focus on questions about revenue, but there was a realness about the responses that we haven’t seen before in the Smart50 Awards.
It’s with this in mind that I’m thrilled to reveal the shortlists in our four categories of Adaptation, Community, People and Agility.
You can see the full list at the end of this article, and click through to read more about the shortlisted businesses in the Adaptation and People categories today.
Come back tomorrow to read about our shortlistees in the Community and Agility categories.
Please take the time to read about all of these businesses.
The winners in each category will be announced on Tuesday, December 15.
Thank you to each and every business that entered this year’s awards; to our expert judging panel that has helped select the winners; and to our awards sponsor Salesforce.
SmartCompany Resilience Awards shortlists
Adaptation
People
Community