Industry awaits ARN Innovation Awards 2020

The ARN Innovation Awards 2020 will run as a virtual ceremony on Wednesday 9 December, recognising ecosystem excellence amid a competitive pool of more than 200 finalists across Australia.

Representing more than 130 organisations — including partners (70+), vendors (50+) and distributors (13) — the 14th running of the flagship industry celebration will honour outstanding work through customer value and innovation, following a record-breaking haul of over 400 submissions.

The decision to run the Awards a week later than originally scheduled follows plans to ensure the EDGE 2020 platform remains open for an extended period in response to increased market appetite for on-demand content and strategic one-to-one networking following completion of the invite-only virtual experience. For more information, click here.

As a result, the Awards will now run on Wednesday 9 December to best accommodate two leading ARN initiatives.

Hosted by Anna Daniels — an Australian author and comedian — as Master of Ceremonies, the Awards will be delivered virtually in three sections featuring category announcements throughout the day.

The first section will start at 10am (AEDT) and span Start-Up, Homegrown, Vendor Value and Distributor Value categories. This will be followed by the second running at 12pm (AEDT), including Channel Choice, Emerging Technologies and Personal Innovation categories.

Meanwhile the third instalment will house Partner Value, Corporate Citizen and Hall of Fame categories, starting at 2pm (AEDT).

Since launching in 2007, the Awards has continued to celebrate and reward channel excellence across Australia, recognising company-wide and individual achievements at local levels. In 2020, the Awards will honour the market across nine categories — Start-up; Partner Value; Emerging Technology; Homegrown Innovators; Vendor Value; Distributor Value; Personal Innovation; Corporate Citizen; Channel Choice and Hall of Fame.

This year, Security stood out as the most competitive category with 11 finalists, reflecting a year of numerous cyber attacks on both private sector enterprises and government organisations as criminals take advantage of COVID-19 and the increased vulnerability resulting from a surge in remote working.

Behind Security, Channel Excellence, Networking and Telecommunications also garnered significant numbers of finalists, spanning the full spectrum of partners, vendors and distributors. Also reflective of the changing times was the high number of finalists shortlisted in the Digital Transformation category – nine in total – while Cloud continued its trajectory as one of the Awards’ most competitive categories.

Of the individual categories, Technical Excellence boasted the highest number of finalists, featuring 11 potential winners.

To register for the ARN Innovation Awards 2020 - click here