Enter the Swale Business Awards in Kent and gain exceptional marketing opportunities for your business. Sign up for the Swale Business Awards for FREE.

Register for Awards

Why Enter?

Now in our fourteenth year, the Swale Business Awards offers numerous benefits to your organisation including:

Recognition of your team’s contribution to your success
The opportunity to raise your business’ profile and make potential customers aware of what you offer
Extensive online coverage via our website and through our social media accounts
Finalists invited to attend our black tie gala evening held at the Kent Event Centre
Finalist's profiles featured in the awards brochure
A £1000 cheque for the overall winner of Swale Business of the Year

Will you be crowned Swale Business of the Year or judged as the winner in one of our other categories:

Faversham Business of the Year
Sheppey Business of the Year
Sittingbourne Business of the Year
Small Business of the Year
Environmental Impact Award
Employer of the Year
Entrepreneur of the Year
Customer Service and Commitment
Community Impact Award

Any size and type of business is eligible to apply; you must have been trading for a minimum of 12 months on 30th June 2020.

Once You've Entered

After you've completed your application form you will be contacted by our Awards Manager, who will draft your profile and then run it past you for approval. It will then appear on our site and across our various social media platforms - so keep your eyes peeled and don't forget to share it across your own networks!

Choosing the Finalists

Every company who enters the Swale Business Awards is invited to submit as much information as possible to support their entry. Once the deadline for entries has passed the panel of judges will assess this information and then meet to discuss the pros and cons of each submission on a range of criteria designed to assess their performance over the last year. The shortlisting process is always extremely difficult as the standard of entries is consistently high, so often a degree of ruthlessness is called upon to whittle down the candidates until eventually the best entrants across the four categories are agreed upon.

Judging the Finalists

Once the finalist have been selected they are notified in writing and visited in person by the judges. These meetings generally include a tour of the premises and then a meeting in which the candidates are asked for detailed information about their business in the following categories:

Commercial, legal and marketing
Management, planning, culture and leadership
Financial performance
Corporate social responsibility
Business development
Customer relations and successes
Employee relations

Choosing the Winners

In each of these categories, the business receives an overall score out of 7, with a final score being allocated for the judges’ overall impression of the business. This system ensures that all businesses, regardless of their size and profits, are assessed on a level playing field and allows the judges to give an objective verdict on their relative merits. At the end of the process, a clear winner can usually be identified in each category, with one business standing out as the overall winner of the Swale Business of the Year award.

The 2019 Judging Panel