The Hamilton-based graphics printing company has just won the Business of the Year at the Westpac Waikato Business Excellence Awards to add to its five gold medals it picked up at Pride in Print recently.
Managing director Laurie Pilling says he is absolutely thrilled at receiving the business award against a group of larger Waikato companies. Admark won the top award despite stiff competition from the 51 Waikato businesses which entered this year.
The supreme award was chosen by eight judges from the category winners. Admark won the 2003 Manufacturing Excellence Award. The awards were organised by the Waikato Chamber of Commerce.
One of the three judges in the manufacturing category, Jack Niness says the key to Admark’s victory in his view was its innovation and strong leadership structure.
“The supervisors provided a leadership role and the whole process was promoted through the staff structure. They had good customer focus and a focus on their key market strategies,” he says.
Another judge, Carlos da Silva says it was Admark’s solid financial performance which impressed him.
“They are producing quality work and involving their people.”
Laurie made an excited acceptance speech by phone from Singapore thanking his team for the exceptional work they had done.
He and a team of 12 of his staff were in Singapore completing a project decorating a 747 for Air Pacific, the second jet it has visually ’wrapped’ for the airline this year.
While he’d planned to be at the dinner to see how Admark would fare, he missed his connecting flight back to New Zealand. His general manager, Brent Blair and Admark’s marketing and sales director Lisa Pilling accepted the award on his behalf.
Laurie says he couldn’t be more thrilled at the win because the criteria for the award was very comprehensive.
“They take into account the leadership within the company, its culture and performance. The excellence award comes down to coming out better than your competitors,” he says.
Laurie modestly puts his company’s win down to “our brilliant staff. We have a great company culture and an annual average staff turnover of only seven and a half years.”
And Admark is growing, he says.
“We have three major printing technologies, large format digital, graphic screen printing and label printing, and all three are expanding. We’re also moving forward in aircraft graphics, we have some major projects lined up in this arena this year. We’re the only ones doing it in the Australasian region.”
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