Innovation Award: submit your company

A couple of posts ago we have written on the importance for companies to come above the radar. One of the ways to do this, we stated, is to be selected or nominated for an award. We made a list of awards and competitions, which we published at thenexweb.org and on this site.

As a member of the jury of the Innovation Awards of Accenture, I have realised that it makes sense for companies to participate in a competition. Not only are companies stimulated to name their Unique Selling Points in this competition, but others will also get to know these USP’s. Also, Accenture makes an extensive research report on these companies, and publishes about them blogs, newspapers and through a conference.

Accenture has issued a press release that it is interested in women-led companies and urges women to submit their innovative companies and concepts. I can only agree with this special request, and I hope that the women-led companies in this competition will be above the usual 5% of the entries.

Not only startups benefit from awards, also big companies benefit from it. Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten wrote about how big companies struggle to innovate. His solution:

If we think that big companies can’t innovate, then WHAT should they do? How would they be able to innovate? Well, here are a few ideas:

Stop trying to do it yourself. You hire great managers, not inventors or entrepreneurs. If you want to innovate give some money to entrepreneurs and inventors. Don’t hire them because that will turn them into managers. Managers don’t innovate.

So how do you give money to entrepreneurs and inventors?
There are several ways of doing that. Here are two obvious and simple ways:

1: buy their companies and services
2: organize awards and hand out prize money

So competitions are beneficial to startups and big companies. Conclusion: submit your company to the Innovation Award!