Three new categories have been added to the Ignite Wanaka Business Awards, which will be back for a fourth year in November.

The awards, supported by Milford Asset Management, provide a biennial opportunity for businesses to take a step back to assess their business, analyse what's worked well and where improvements could be achieved.

This year the awards are expected to highlight the Upper Clutha's most resilient and innovative businesses: those which have tackled, and largely survived, some of the hardest trading conditions seen in our lifetimes.

“The focus of the 2021 Ignite Wanaka Business Awards is on resilience and diversification,” Ignite general manager Naomi Lindsay said. 

“It's been an uncertain 18 months for many in our business community, but the courage, tenacity and creativity with which businesses have tackled the pandemic has been nothing short of inspiring.”

Convenor of judges Wayne Hudson said 2021 will be a very interesting year for the awards. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing how businesses have coped with the challenges imposed by the pandemic, the lockdowns and the closing of our international borders. I am not expecting every business to have had a ‘successful’ year. Instead, survival in these turbulent times will in many cases be a success in itself. Learning how businesses have managed to survive and what they did to adapt should be very interesting."

The three new award categories this year are Outstanding Employer, and Outstanding Not for Profit or Social Enterprise; and the retail and hospitality category has been split into two, recognising the differences between these sectors. 

In addition, a new question has been included to recognise those businesses who showed exceptional resilience or diversification of their business in light of the pandemic.

For the first time, judges will also be able to choose to nominate finalists (and subsequently winners) based on business size, with finalists and winners in the small or large capacity within each category.

Naomi said it was important for judges to be able to award two winners (based on business size) should they deem that there were two businesses who equally deserved to win and the only difference in scores was size.

This year there are also two new judges on the judging panel: local business advisers Charlie James and Meg Taylor.

The full list of award categories for 2021 can be found here.

Application forms will be on the Ignite Wanaka website within the next few days. Entries (which should be emailed to [email protected]) will close at 5pm Friday October 8, and the awards finals dinner will be held in November.

PHOTO: Wanaka App