Professor Chris Pyke, Executive Dean, Faculty of Business & Justice at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), said businesses had been driven to find new ways of working, product and service lines and new ways to selling as a result of the impact of the restrictions.
UCLan is sponsoring the Most Resilient Business of the Year award at this year’s Be Inspired Business Awards, The BIBAs, one of the county’s leading business awards.
It is currently carrying out interviews with hundreds of applicants from across Lancashire’s business community, with the winners due to be announced at a prize-giving ceremony scheduled for September.
Professor Sue Smith, Director, Centre for SME Development said: “At UCLan we work alongside businesses throughout Lancashire every day and the level of resilience and innovation we have seen from businesses across the breadth of the economy has been amazing during the pandemic.
“Now businesses need to harness the benefits of their wider product ranges, their different selling channels or their new ways of working they have developed and use them to their advantage to help them get back to growth.
“Our judges on The BIBAs’ panel has seen a number of businesses which have shown exactly the type of resilience I am talking about as they have been selecting the winner of the Most Resilient Business of the Year.”
The winner of the Most Resilient Business of the Year, new prize category for the 2021 awards, will be handed out alongside 19 others at a ceremony held in the Tower Ballroom at the iconic Blackpool Tower.
Alongside 19 categories where businesses and individuals from across Lancashire have been able to enter, The BIBAs will also be handing out its lifetime achievement award, Lancastrian of the Year.
Former High Sheriff of Lancashire, Ann Dean DL, picked up the prize when the awards were last held in September 2019.
Her business interests include a role as a director of Gutterking, a family-owned group of builders’ merchants, founder and owner of Benetimo PR, which specialises in the healthcare sector, and a role as a director on the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership.
For further details about The BIBAs, visit the awards’ official website at www.thebibas.co.uk.