Awards – are they worth it?
Regularly I read press releases about companies winning an award for the best system or most innovative solution in their resepective industry - and here in the treasury world we also have our own bunch of awards.
But what do these awards tell you?
Can you trust that if you buy a system, which has just won an award for innovation, that you will get the most innovative system?
Generally, the prizes are awarded in two different ways.
Either by vote or by committee – both are flawed in different ways in my opinion.
If you take the voting method, the biggest and most sold system has the best chance of winning, simply due to the higher number of users.
If your system has 100 clients and another one has only 10, because it is newer, you need only 1 out of 10 of your our clients to vote for you to win the award.
And if your system is at least half descent you can probably get some of your clients to vote for you with some e-mail actions and good client management.
So, this method says more about the number of clients you have, and whether you actively lobby your clients to vote for you.
Is a committee better?
At least a committee doesn’t automatically give the award to the most sold system.
However, to convince a committee that it is your system that is the most innovative or best in a category still takes a lot of effort, preparation and good presentation skills.
These parts are just as important as the system that is being judged.
You may have the most innovative system, but if you don’t have the resources to apply for the award, you will not get it.
Further, there is always the risk that the award will be given to the friends of the committee members – not that this is the norm, but I have seen it happen. After all, the treasury world is a small world, where you meet the same people time after time.
Awards are great tools for generating PR, both for the companies that win the awards and for the magazines that issue them. The prizes offer great material for writing stories.
However, it is more about PR than customer information.
Saying that I do believe it doesn’t make the prizes completely worthless, but you have to be aware of how they were awarded.
They can be a good guide to see what is going on in the industry. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t select a system based on the awards it has won.
