Get behind ALMR awards, says Andrew Pring

It's 10 years since the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) began running its Operations Manager of the Year awards, now one of the key industry standards-raising initiatives.

It was an idea whose time had come. Pubcos, whether managed or tenanted, had awards schemes for their managers and licensees. But the vital interface between companies and their pubs, the BDMs and ops managers, all too often went unacknowledged. The people performing this critical role were, in effect, unsung heroes.

ALMR chief executive Nick Bish was determined to put that deficiency right, and encourage pubco bosses to focus more on helping raise the performance bar for this group of about 1,500 individuals. As he has often expressed it over the past 10 years: "The ops manager is the gearbox that drives the head-office engine. Unless you have effective linkage between the two, the business simply does not work."

With the support of his committee, and generous sponsors such as Inbev, Bish has built the awards to the stage where the BDMs and ops managers who make it through to the finals are seen as the industry's elite. They embody industry best practice in driving businesses and helping licensees fulfil their commercial aspirations.

Following the Trade & Industry Committee's damning remarks several years ago about BDMs -"their performance varies across the industry from excellent to dire" - the importance of the awards became even more apparent. Although many BDMs and ops managers were operating at higher standards, large swathes of them were still not as professional as they should be.

ALMR's creation of a new dimension to the awards - masterclasses at Ashridge and an academy for ops managers and BDMs - has raised the bar again. But what's apparent from the names who take part and win awards is that not every company in the industry has yet taken on board the value of what Bish and his committee are doing.

Some do not send their people along to Ashridge or even enter the awards. The costs are quite high. But it seems they are more worried about losing their best people to rivals, even though gentlemen's non-poaching agreements do exist.

Whatever the reason, it's short-sighted. If the dire performers are to go - and go they must - more and more companies need to get behind these awards.