Defence awards to recognise AIC champions for their hard work

The fourth annual Australian Defence Industry Awards is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 15 September at the National Convention Centre in Canberra, and will recognise the best and brightest in Australia’s defence industry for their tireless efforts and dedication.

It will also celebrate professionals and businesses who have gone above and beyond to build a stronger and more innovative defence ecosystem.

Award entrants can submit their entry or nominate a worthy colleague across 10 individual and 18 company categories. At the end of the ceremony, one person will be selected from all individual category winners as the recipient of the prestigious Excellence Award.

This year, we are pleased to include a new Australian Industry Capability (AIC) Champion of the Year award category, which rewards the AIC champion that has contributed significantly towards building a sovereign defence industry, while facilitating the growth and development of Australian small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and AIC.

The AIC Program is designed to create opportunities for Australian industry and local SMEs to compete on their merits for defence contracts within our shores and overseas.

The AIC champion will have a proven track record of commitment to Australian defence businesses, enabling their participation in the defence industry via program partnerships, access to global supply chains, capability development, sponsorship, and mentoring.

This includes all defence primes, regardless of the specialisation, operating across domains such as land, aerospace, cyber, naval, space, weapons and weapons systems, systems engineering and integration, C4ISR, multidomain, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), and all other defence-related disciplines.

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All defence prime contractors are encouraged to participate irrespective of revenue or geographic locations.

The submissions will be peer-reviewed by a panel of well-respected judges.

A time to reflect

The awards and submissions provide entrants with an opportunity to reflect on and highlight their major successes, achievements, or milestones over the assessment period of between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021, and how the business’ leadership contributed to these outcomes.

In their submissions, entrants must outline their product or service, distribution, customers, pricing, and approach to customer service, while detailing the market potential for their business, system, or platform and the process for scaling/expanding it.

Furthermore, they must outline their unique selling points/competitive advantages and how these translate into market dominance/business potential.

They must detail how they have supported the Australian supply chain and the objective of strengthening Australia’s sovereign industrial capability via engaging, training, and expanding domestic partner businesses and opening up knowledge/IP transfer.

Alongside this, a strong submission will highlight how the business will support increased jobs in the defence industry, and ongoing upskilling for an Australian workforce.

Entrants must also demonstrate any innovation that has shaped their business (this is not limited to financial gains).

On top of this, award entrants are encouraged to provide and refer to a maximum of four attached supporting materials for the judges’ consideration. This could include financial or business metrics, images, statistics, transcripts, media coverage, accolades, testimonials or recommendations/references, and other relevant information.

To bolster the submission even further, entrants can submit an optional short video (in addition to the supporting documents) up to 30 seconds long answering the question: “What does business success mean to you?”

All information provided must be unclassified and will be treated confidentially and only shared with the specific judges that assess this category.

To be eligible for the AIC Champion of the Year award, the nominee must be an Australian business, organisation, or institution (or division of a global business that is registered to trade in Australia) with a focus on supporting the Australian defence supply chain.

It is open to all businesses that have been trading for at least two full calendar years to 31 December 2020.

Submit an entry now

To enter the awards, register your account through our secure awards platform and fill in the details of your submissions. When you’re happy with your submission, press save and lodge it.

Nominations and submissions close on Thursday, 21 July.

Click here to submit an entry or nominate a worthy colleague for a chance to take centrestage and walk home with a trophy.

For more information about the awards program, including categories and judging process, click here.