Gold ACE Award shows size no barrier says Index Engineering

With entries now open for the 2024 ACE Awards, Gold award winner Index Engineering encourages other SMEs to enter saying last year's win was a huge achievement and great endorsement of its work. Business Manager Ingrid Snyman shares her thoughts about why the awards are worth entering.  

What was it like entering the awards? 

It was a lot of work! As business manager, I drove the award entry. I needed to present our story on this job in such a way that it highlighted the challenges of the job, how we addressed them and why we felt this demonstrated consulting excellence.

The engineer on the job (managing director) is always very busy, so it took quite a bit of hassling to ensure that I had the relevant information and the entry was put together in a coherent way. Due to ACE New Zealand requirements, we needed to wait at least a year before we could submit an entry on a mechanical engineering job, and this meant that a key contact at the client site had moved to another company and some recall was needed about the job progression. 

It was fantastic to receive the gold award as an SME, as often the awards go to larger consultancies with huge budgets. It felt like a significant achievement and a real endorsement of the work we do and the passion we put into our business.  It was a morale boost for all our staff, and we feel very proud to have been recognised for our high standard of consultancy delivery. 

Have you had any exposure since winning the award? 

We highlighted our award on our website and in our biannual newsletter. It was great to have some of our clients contact us to offer their congratulations. Engineering New Zealand has picked up the story and will feature our work in the February edition of the EG magazine. 

Would you enter the awards again? 

Absolutely, if we have a job where we felt we could demonstrate that our consulting work was truly exceptional. It is well worth the time and effort put into entry preparation.