What a fantastic night it was celebrating the success of business excellence for emerging, small, medium and large businesses across the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

The Horizon Energy Group Business Excellence Awards 2018 took place over the weekend on Saturday night, recognising businesses that achieve outstanding results and maintains a culture of excellence.

Horizon Energy Group Chairman Tony de Farias says, “The size and enthusiasm of the attendees at the awards reinforces that this is our Hallmark community event and Horizon Energy Group is proud to be associated with it. The awards also demonstrate that all businesses can benefit from an improved focus on people, service, systems, the community and environment. Our congratulations to all the contestants and of course the winners”.

Task with delivering the Awards, Chief Operating Officer of the Eastern Chamber of Commerce Gerard Casey says, “The Horizon Energy Group Business Excellence Awards truly reflected the
diversity of the region and the businesses in there. It was intensely competitive in all categories and this reflected with the judges making a number of highly commended awards".

The judging process which combines rigorous internal review and external assessment was definitely a challenge. Head Judge Anne Pankhurst, addressed the 450 strong attendees acknowledging the passion and commitment each of the contestants had for their business, staff, ideas and innovation. She says, “It was frankly very exciting". The entrants have shown it to be one of entrepreneurship and innovation, and something that shone out was the commitment to community, that, each and everyone of the businesses that entered understood their role being part of the community”. Building on changes introduced this year into the judging process, they ran an online entry and a panel judging process, with a site visit. The judges discovered that they had a large number of high calibre businesses, all of whom have
clearly demonstrated understanding and capability related to the challenges and opportunities presented by doing business in the bay.

The Horizon Energy Group Business Excellence Awards, takes place every two years and provides a working framework for organisations to focus on continuous improvement.

We would like to say congratulations to all the winners and we will see you again in 2020!