The question I hear most often from companies that are on the fence about submitting an award nomination is some version of: are we actually good enough for this? And the honest answer, in most cases, is that the question is slightly wrong. It is not really about whether you are good enough. It is about whether you can demonstrate what makes you good, specifically and credibly, to someone who has never heard of you and has eight minutes to evaluate your submission.
Those are related but different challenges. Companies that are doing genuinely excellent work sometimes cannot pass the second test. And occasionally, companies that have done fairly standard work find a specific angle that lets them make a genuinely compelling case. Understanding which situation you are in, before you invest significant time in a nomination, is the most useful thing you can do at the start of this process.
The Four Questions That Tell You What You Have to Work With
Before you touch a nomination form, spend an hour working through these four questions honestly. The answers will tell you a lot about where your strongest case lives and whether you are ready to submit now or need a few more months of work before you do.
First: what specifically did we do differently or better than the standard approach in our category? Not vaguely differently. Specifically. What was the conventional approach, and how did we deviate from it and why? If you cannot answer this question with a concrete, specific answer, you probably need to either think harder about what actually differentiates your work, or wait until you have done something more clearly differentiated to talk about.
Second: what are the measurable results? Not impressions or sentiments or general improvements. Actual numbers. Revenue impact, customer outcomes, operational metrics, timeline achievements. The Business Intelligence Group judging process specifically weights evidence-backed claims over qualitative descriptions. If you cannot produce numbers, you are going to struggle to score in the top tier.
Third: who outside your own team can verify what you are claiming? Customer quotes, independent audits, third-party case studies, press coverage, analyst reports. External validation of your results is not required, but it dramatically strengthens a nomination. If you have it, use it. If you do not have it for this submission, start building the infrastructure to capture it going forward.
Fourth: why does what we did matter beyond our own company? What is the broader significance of the problem we solved or the approach we developed? If the answer is genuinely it only matters to us, that is fine for some award categories but limiting for others. Understanding the broader relevance of your work helps you identify which programs are the best fit.
Matching Your Work to the Right Programs
Not every award program is the right fit for every piece of excellent work. Different programs serve different purposes, carry weight with different audiences, and weight their evaluation criteria in different ways. A company that has done breakthrough innovation work should be looking at innovation programs. A company that has built an exceptional workplace culture should be looking at employer recognition programs. A company that has delivered exceptional customer outcomes should be looking at customer service excellence programs.
The mistake that costs companies time and produces disappointing results is submitting to programs that are not well-matched to what they are actually trying to be recognized for. Before you invest in a nomination, look carefully at what a given program actually evaluates, who its judges are, and what its past winners look like. If there is a strong alignment between what you have done and what the program recognizes, that is where to focus your energy.
The Timing Question
There is a timing dimension to this that is worth thinking about carefully. The best award nominations describe work that is recent enough to feel current and complete enough to have measurable results. Initiatives that are still in progress are harder to make a compelling case for, because the results are not yet definitive. Initiatives that are several years old start to feel historical rather than current.
The sweet spot is usually work that was completed or reached a meaningful milestone in the past 12 to 18 months, with results that are clear enough to be described specifically and recent enough to still be relevant to what your company is doing now. If you are in that window with something genuinely strong, the timing is right to submit.
The Honest Gut Check
Here is a simple test that I find genuinely useful. If a knowledgeable peer in your industry read your nomination, would they come away impressed? Not because you used impressive language, but because the work itself, as you described it, is genuinely impressive? If the answer is yes, you are ready to submit. If the answer is I think so, but I am not sure I have described it well enough to make it obvious, spend another few hours on the nomination before you send it. If the answer is probably not, it might be worth waiting for a stronger piece of work or a program that is a better fit. The good news is that the next window is usually not far off.