TWO more sponsors of this year’s Winchester Business Excellence Awards have released the criteria for a further two categories.

1-1 Recruitment, one of four new sponsors this year, is sponsoring the Small Business of the Year award which will be presented to an outstanding business or organisation with less than 15 full time employees.

The business must have demonstrated excellence in developing its business plan and meeting company objectives.

Chief Executive, Helen Floor, said: “1-1 Recruitment are proud sponsors of the Small Business of the Year Award. “As an independent recruitment business in Winchester we meet a diverse range of customers and we are delighted one of them will receive the recognition they deserve.”

Judges will look for a business that can demonstrate the achievement of its objectives and can produce a business plan, has a clear understanding of their market and customer needs and has a clear vision for future growth.

This year’s Service Excellence Award is sponsored by local radio station The Breeze and, for the first time in the business awards’ history, is a nomination only category.

This award will be made to an organisation making effective use of customer service initiatives to deliver business plan objectives and demonstrating improved business performance as a result.

Stewart Dennis, sales manager at The Breeze, said: “The Breeze is delighted to be supporting the Winchester Business Excellence Awards again this year. It became very clear in last year’s awards the wide range of high quality businesses and entrepreneurship in the Winchester region.

“The Breeze is particularly excited to be sponsoring the awards as this is such an important element to get right for businesses. This award provides an ideal platform to celebrate those businesses that get it right and continually deliver outstanding customer service.”

Judges will look to award a business which can demonstrate success in achieving service excellence through the delivery of customer service initiatives, is actively improving customer service orientation of staff through training and development and can demonstrate a clear relationship between customer service activities and improved business performance.