Award Force turns 10: a decade of empowering recognition through values-based growth

It’s officially time to celebrate! Yes, we love celebrations of all kinds—we are, after all, a maker of recognition software. But, we’re turning TEN! And we’re thrilled to celebrate this achievement, marking a decade of empowering organisations across the globe to recognise excellence.

Since 2013, our software has served to revolutionise the awards management process, introducing the first SaaS solution dedicated solely to awards managers to help them save time, reduce administrative overhead and improve the overall experience for all program participants—from program managers and judges to entrants, sponsors and community partners.

We’re so proud to have led the way, earning accolades from third-party review sites like Capterra and G2 who’ve named us the #1 awards management software in the industry, citing our award-winning customer support, competitive pricing, ease of implementation and more.

Yes, there have been many learnings along the way—and we owe so much to our amazing clients across the globe from a myriad of industries who have put their trust in us to help them manage their awards program successfully.

But, as we look back, we can’t help but focus on our guiding values—and the achievements and milestones we’ve reached through them.

The values that guide us

Our values have set our standards and defined the experience for our clients. These values are part of everything we do, from determining product outcomes to market engagement to how we represent our brand. 

Kaizen: continuous improvement

Kaizen is the Japanese word for improvement or ‘change for the better’. Toyota pioneered a culture of kaizen on their vehicle production lines as part of their lean manufacturing production method. Aspects of Toyota’s lean principles have made their way into the Agile software development methodology—and into startup culture via the book The Lean Startup.

We’ve never been satisfied with the status quo. In fact, that’s how Award Force came into being in the first place. We realised there was a better way to manage awards programs, and we created our software to facilitate that. Along the way, we’ve always embraced change, for the better.

In the last decade, we’ve:

• Stretched across the globe. From day one, we were ‘born global’, built for awards programs around the world. Our support team followed suit. Award Force boasts a globally distributed and remote client success team, available 24 hours a day, five days a week to help our clients around the clock. 
• Innovated. Our product and engineering teams have released hundreds of new features and improvements, with product updates published monthly to keep our clients informed.
• Embraced feedback. Our clients have asked, and we’ve provided—from time-saving improvements to big game-changing features, we’re always listening and iterating for the people we’ve built our product for. 

Good design

Elegance and simplicity has been baked into Award Force from the very start. German modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is credited with the aphorism “God is in the details”— expressing the idea that the power in our work is in paying close attention to the details. Elegance and simplicity demand an absolute mindful focus on the details. And that’s what we strive to do at Award Force.

Design milestones: 

• Recognised for design by Australian Good Design Awards, US Mobile & App Design Awards and Asia Mobile & App Design Awards
• Created and implemented a digital accessibility strategy for the product and company in line with WCAG 2.1 level AA (learn more about our accessibility)

Integrity

To recognise excellence honestly, reliably and without bias requires a foundation of integrity. The Award Force product is that foundation. We collect and protect data with integrity, and provide tools for our clients to judge their submissions with powerful and transparent integrity. 

Milestones: 

• Implemented best practice security practices and features so our clients never have to worry about the security of the data stored in Award Force 
• Became compliant with GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, APP and LGPD to help clients maintain compliance with requirements under the various regional security regulations
• Now offer all four of our judging modes on our most affordable plan, Growth, so all programs can take advantage of powerful and reliable assessment tools, without breaking the bank. 

Community

Award Force is a community. Our team, our clients, their program participants, entrants, judges—we are all connected. We know that strong communities support their participants. And when you pay it forward, everyone benefits. 

Our award-winning client success team is one of the most beloved in the world, and we’re so proud to support our clients and their communities. 

Milestones:

• Recognised as the perennial leader in customer service—named a winner in the 18th Annual 2023 Globee® Awards for Information Technology for Customer Service Department of the Year and awarded “Best Relationship” for summer 2023 in awards management software by G2
• Participate annually in GivingTuesday, the international movement to promote radical generosity, where we stop and give our time and financial resources in our own communities across the globe 

Environmental sustainability

Award Force helps recognise extraordinary human achievement and we believe it’s important for future generations to have the opportunity to do remarkable things. For this reason, sustainability is a high priority for us. We want to ensure a healthy and liveable planet for many generations to come.

Climate change and loss of biodiversity are threatening life on earth and we believe organisations have a responsibility to minimise their environmental impact. We aim to run our business profitably while minimising our environmental impact, delivering a valuable service for our clients, and providing fulfilling employment opportunities for talented people around the world.

We support environmental defenders through financial and product donations. And we offset our carbon emissions through tree planting.

Looking ahead

We feel just as strongly about our values today as we did ten years ago, and are certain we will continue to grow and succeed because these principles help guide our every decision.

We’re so thankful for our clients—who like us, are looking for excellence in our everyday world. We look forward to spending the next decade working together.