No, nomination is FREE.

If you are successful in making the shortlist to progress in the competition, there is a fee involved.

Nominations open Monday 15th March 2021

Nominations have been extended and will close on Friday May 14, 2021

Full submissions for shortlisted entrants close Friday July 2, 2021

It’s not because we don’t think that small companies are innovative – they indeed are! It’s due to the rigorous methodology that we use to identify the most innovative companies. It assesses elements such as having a structured innovation process, that aren’t necessarily applicable to smaller organisations. These elements have however been shown by research to be essential for mid-large sized organisations, to successfully embed innovation throughout. Therefore, smaller organisations would be at a disadvantage in this particular competition.

Yes! If you are representing an organisation that is doing amazing things, then we’d love you to let us know by nominating them! You will need to consent of the company you are nominating and we will require your key contact details from the organisation you are nominating.

No. Please just include full-time and part-time staff in your employee number total. Please ensure that whatever number you provide us with is verifiable by your HR department. They will be contacted once your registration is finalised to confirm this number, please ensure they are aware of this.

You won’t know unless you try! Nomination is now FREE and if you are shortlisted, the beauty of this competition is that regardless of whether you rank or not on your industry list, you’ll receive an innovation survey report, which will give you a benchmark of where you sit on each of the drivers of innovation relative to other entrants. This will give you a great indication of where you need to improve to rank higher next time around.

Yes. The entry costs, inclusive of the innovation survey report and entry into your industry list and special award categories are as follows:

20-99 employees and not-for-profits – $2,500+GST

100-499 employees – $3,500+GST

500+ employees – $4,500+GST

Yes, If you are shortlisted, you are automatically assessed for all special award categories as well as for a ranking on your industry list.

If you’ve lost or forgot your submission login details, it’s ok! See below

• Portal address is https://mostinnovative.awardsplatform.com/
• Use the email you used to register for the competition
• You can reset your password on the login page by clicking the reset password button

You can also select the remember me box so they are safe for next time. If you’re still having trouble just contact us on [email protected] and we’ll help you out

If you’re having trouble with your submission portal, give your internal IT team a shout as there might be a security setting blocking your access. If you’re still having trouble after this, then pop us through a message at [email protected] and we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Your employee numbers should be the total number of full-time and part-time employees working within the Australian arm of your organisation. We calculate your survey’s minimum response number based on this total because it makes sure that the data we receive from your survey is representative of your organisation. We’re more than happy to revise your employee numbers if you initially included contractors or casuals in your total, however we can’t reduce your numbers to only include certain departments or head office staff, as this would impact your survey data’s quality.

You can do this via the submission portal.

First, the entrant who will be assigned the entry will need to have an Award Force account. They can register an account on the portal home page. Then:

1. Go to Entries > Manage entries
2. Click on the name of the entry you want re-assign
3. Click Edit entry
4. In the Entrant field start typing the name of the entrant and select their name from the drop down menu
5. Click Save + close

Yes, pictures, links, videos or other files will be accepted for your submission, these must be clearly referenced in your written submission. Any attachments that are unclear will be disregarded during judging.

To be eligible for the awards, the innovation must have been implemented, through a formal launch or similar, since April 2019.

We will assess this in the nomination stage. If you are successful in being shortlisted, your innovation was deemed eligible.

It must not have been used in a previous submission.

When completing your submission form, you need to indicate what type of innovation yours falls under – product, service, process, internal/HR, business model, marketing or social/community/CSR. This is to make sure you’re eligible for our category awards, such as ‘Best Product Innovation’. It’s quite possible that your innovation falls into two categories, so if this is so, just select all the most applicable.  And if all else fails, just contact us on [email protected] and we can help you out.

Yes, you can still enter with an innovation that you’ve worked on with a partner organisation. Just make sure that you’ve sought their permission first and refer only to the parts that your company was specifically involved in.

In terms of confidentiality, all of the judges are all required to sign NDA’s prior to being sent the submissions. However, if you do make the list (i.e. are in the Top 100 companies) then your information will be passed onto Fairfax. By completing your submission, as per the terms and conditions of the competition, you are giving consent to having the identity, trademarks and relevant details about your organisations innovations as included in your submission published if selected.

If you don’t make your industry list, no details are distributed further.

Your minimum response number is calculated by our analyst team and is derived in a way that ensures the data we collect is representative of your wider organisation. It’s based on the size of your organisation, which we take as the total number of full-time and part-time employees.

If you’re still struggling to meet your minimum response number, here’s a few tricks you can try to boost responses:

• Ask a senior leader to promote the survey for you through meetings/presentations or internal communications. Highlight that it’s an important initiative for your organisation.
• Offer a prize for one lucky person who has filled out the survey.
• Go around to staff with an iPad or laptop and ask them to fill out the survey then and there.
• Set up a survey station in the kitchen or common area that has a number laptops and iPads ready for people to complete the survey on their break.
• Schedule 15 minutes on a Monday morning in employees’ diaries as dedicated unmovable time to complete the survey.
• Send out a text message with the survey link to employees at 8:30am or 5:00pm on a weekday so that people can complete the survey on their smartphones during their commute.
• Throw a survey launch party or morning tea to promote the survey and celebrate those who have taken the time to complete it.

You might find that your survey numbers aren’t as high as expected because some of your responses have been filtered out through data cleaning. Throughout the competition, we continually assess the quality and consistency of the data coming through to make sure that the data collected is truly representative of your organisation.

We cannot provide pdf or word copies of the survey, however if you or your manager would like to see they survey before sending it out, we suggest completing it yourselves as a true respondent.

We understand that you might have innovation more heavily embedded and driven from within one or two parts of your organisation, however the survey is designed to assess innovation across your broader organisation.

The definition of innovation that both we and the Financial Review use includes all employees within an organisation (across all divisions, teams and levels of seniority), therefore it’s important that we gather the perspectives of all employees.

We are not able to provide on-the-spot survey response number updates, however you will get an update every few days once the survey opens. We will send scheduled updates on pre-set dates.

All of the data collected from the survey is de-identified so we’re not able to track who has or has not done it. For the survey to be complete and included in your total, respondents have to fill out all of the questions. Make sure you communicate this to all employees to ensure everyone gets right to the very end (including pressing the submit button on the last page).

The competition entry for the 2021 Australian Financial Review Most Innovative Companies Competition is non-transferrable and non-refundable as per the terms and conditions. If you do need to withdraw from the competition, we’re more than happy to still provide you with your innovation survey report if you have enough survey responses. To check if you have enough survey responses for a report, send us through an email to [email protected]

The competition entry for the 2021 Australian Financial Review Most Innovative Companies Competition is non-transferrable and non-refundable as per the terms and conditions.

Yes, we’re more than happy to still provide you with an innovation survey report. These reports will be sent out when the list is released in October.

If you can’t complete part of your submission in time, you’re still able to enter the competition, however you will have to forfeit your points for that part. For reference, each component of the submission is worth the following:

Employee Survey 40% 

Written submission 60%

The competition is on a pretty tight timeline and as such, we can’t provide any extensions for submissions. If you feel your organisation has an extenuating circumstance, feel free to contact us on [email protected] to discuss your options.

In 2021, the industry lists will be published in the Australian Financial Review BOSS on October 15

Fairfax may contact some organisations who have made the lists at random for marketing purposes, however they will not be told where they rank. 

The best way to find out early is to attend the Awards Night in Sydney on October 14

In terms of confidentiality, all of the judges are all required to sign NDA’s prior to being sent the submissions. However, if you do make the an industry list then your information will be passed onto Fairfax. By making your submission, as per the terms and conditions of the competition, you are giving consent to having the identity, trademarks and relevant details about your organisations innovations as included in your submission published if selected. No raw scores for any section are distributed.

If you don’t make the an industry list or win a special award, no details are distributed further

The event will be held on the evening of Thursday 14 October in Sydney. Details on tickets and venue will be released once they are available.

Ticket information will be posted in August. We strongly recommend getting in early as tickets always sell out in advance.

No! That’s half the fun! Either way, the event will be a wonderful networking opportunity and all round enjoyable evening. All entrants are very welcome to attend.