The other day I put on my tux and bow tie and headed off to the Brewery in the City for the annual National Outsourcing Association awards for best practice. I hate wearing a bow tie, so I have avoided many awards ceremonies in the past, but this year I have a surfeit of invitations to black tie events. Either I had to buy a new suit and tie or I would develop a new reputation for being about as sociable as a hermit crab.

I won’t list all the winners as you can see a list by clicking here. It was a fantastic evening and very well organised by the team at Buffalo Communications, especially Emma Pocock and Kam Perera who both worked really hard to make this event work well. The MC, comedian and radio presenter Fred Macaulay, controlled and humoured the corporate audience very well and the process of giving out the awards went on just long enough to give them the reverence they deserve, but not so long that everyone got bored of hearing yet another list of nominees.

I’d like to give a quick shout of congratulations to the people at the Philippines Embassy in London for winning the award for best offshoring destination. That’s one over on the Indians! Also, Stephen Page from the Sapphire Group and his project with Betbrokers (something I wrote about on this blog recently) won the award for being the best outsourcing project of the year – congratulations to everyone at Sapphire for beating off some larger competitors in that category.

Congratulations to everyone who was shortlisted and especially the winners – on to next year when I expect these awards will be even bigger and even better!