If you want a shot at a CRN IMPACT Award, pay attention to our rules and recommendations.
This page and the competition categories are also available in our 2024 Entry Kit (pdf).
Rules
- To be eligible for the 2024 CRN Impact Awards, the nominated project or innovation must have taken place in the 2023 calendar year.
- Nominated projects must be led by or feature meaningful involvement by channel partner/s or local solution provider/s. For example, distributors and vendors can nominate impact they’ve helped achieve for end-user organisations, if they achieved it by working with channel partners such as MSPs or consultants.
- Vendor-only (direct) deals will not be considered.
- For multi-year projects, a significant phase of the project - a major milestone or completion - should have taken place in the 2023 calendar year.
- For ongoing services contracts, the contract should have been live for the majority of the 2023 year.
- Only live, commercial projects are eligible for the CRN Impact Awards. Proof-of-concept projects are welcome, but please reveal this in your submission.
- Before entering the awards, you must have approval for CRN to publish the name of the end-user customer, vendor, distributor or partner you delivered the project for or worked with on the project
- The entry form includes a dedicated section for confidential information (such as commercial details and testimonials). Entrants can opt-in to share confidential information with judges and/or in articles we publish about the awards.
- The CRN Impact Awards are only open to Australian IT projects.
- CRN reserves the right to decide eligibility
Additional rules: Distributions Categories
- Nominating Distributors: Any distributor active in Australia is eligible, and the nominated project must focus on the Australian market
- Nominating Vendors: And vendor active in Australia is eligible, and the nominated project must focus on the Australian market
Timeline
Extended Deadline to submit: Wednesday 15yth May 2024
On the first page of the online entry form, you can provide contact information and a very brief overview of the project/solution. We recommend you fill in this information as soon as possible so we contact you with updates.
Entries will be judged by a panel of CRN editorial judges and industry experts.
Benefits
All winners and finalists will be announced and promoted on the CRN website
and email newsletter.
CRN will publish stories about finalists, which will be shared with thousands of readers of our website and email newsletter (you can use these articles as testimonials/media clippings).
CRN will publish profiles of all winning projects on the CRN website.
Winners will be revealed on Thursday 15th August 2024 at the gala awards dinner at the CRN Pipeline conference at the Sheraton Grand Mirage, Gold Coast
All winners and finalists will receive a brand pack containing the awards logo to use on their website and marketing.
We may also recognise a Highly Commended or Commended in each category.
Option to purchase tickets to the awards and the conference (Pipeline)
Judging
The CRN Impact Awards will be judged by a CRN editorial panel and industry experts, who will consider how well the project achieved the customer's desired outcome
We will consider whether the project achieved its desired outcomes in terms of scope, timeframe and cost.
The judges will look favourably on innovative uses of technology, customer service, strength of partnerships and return on investment.
Tips for your entry
What to do
Do: Start asking for testimonials now. Getting approved testimonials from customers, partners, distributors and vendors can be the most time-consuming part of your entry and this information is the most valuable to judges. Entries without testimonials will be scored down. There is an email template for testimonials available via the online entry form.
Do: Get approvals from customers, partners, distributors and vendors. Some of the content in your entry can be kept confidential but much of it should be approved for publication. Ask which stakeholders in the customer, partner, distributor and vendor organisations need to be across this (such as the communications/PR team).
Do: Plan in advance. Write your entry in a separate word doc and ask colleagues or clients to proofread before you upload into the online form.
Do: Bring in other partners as part of your entry (channel, distributors vendors, sub-contractors). Effective partnerships hold weight with judges.
Do: Use business language and focus on outcomes. The ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ and ‘how’. Write clearly and make it easy for a non-technical audience.
Do: Ask yourself, would this pass the ‘BBQ Test’?
Do: Focus on impressive technology with the ‘wow’ factor. While the awards are not about feeds and speeds, people are impressed by use of innovative and exciting technology. Explain why this tech is so cool.
Do: Use data and metrics to back up your claims. Tell us why the project achieved an outcome for the customer, partner, distributors or vendor and then use data to support this. Look for numbers that indicate savings in time or money, improving customer satisfaction, growing business or hitting client KPIs.
Do: Use images or videos to back up your entry.
What not to do
Do not: Leave your entry to the last minute or submit late. The deadline is fixed and we want a level playing field.
Do not: Enter without customer/partner/distributor/vendor testimonials. These are highly important in the judging process and can easily mean the difference between being a finalist, a winner or missing out entirely.
Do not: Enter without customer/partner/distributor/vendor approvals. Once the submission has been made, CRN reserves the right to publish any content supplied unless indicated otherwise in the entry form.
Do not: Overthink this. The entry process should take hours not days.
Do not: Focus too much on the products and technology. The judges will
not be not impressed by a litany of acronyms and cannot be expected to
effectively judge one vendor’s product versus another.
Do not: Get bogged down in the detail. You should use your entry to focus on
customer outcomes and share easy-to-read data to back up your claims.
Do not: Be vague. Get someone to sanity check your entry and point out
anything they don’t understand or that lacks evidence.
Do not: Use too many acronyms or industry jargon. Assume even simple acronyms may be misunderstood. Spell it out, explain why it is significant, or leave it out.
Do not: Forget to secure customer/partner/distributor/vendor buy-in. Your entry will be judged by a panel of industry experts then, if you are lucky, published for all to see. This should be a positive outcome for all; the last thing anyone wants is a customer/partner/distributor/vendor to be surprised and to push back because they were not kept in the loop.
