Built & Natural Environment
>$30m Category

Architects, consulting engineers, environmental scientists, planners, project managers, quantity surveyors and any other consulting firm in the engineering and built environment space.

There are no hard and fast rules around a minimum size of client contact list required. However, the file you submit should at least include the details of all clients who have received services from your firm in the previous 12 months. Responses from clients older than 12 months are also encouraged so to increase the amount of valuable feedback you collect you should submit the biggest client contact list you can.

If you have any questions about the client database submission process please contact Ewa Foroncewicz by email at ewa.foroncewicz@beatonglobal.com or by phone at +61 3 8373 2605.

No. Your client contact details are an integral part of entering the Awards.

Judging the Awards is not related in any way to whether a firm does or doesn’t subscribe to Beaton’s reports.

Entrants in the Built & Natural Environment Consulting Awards category can win the following Awards:

• Best Built & Natural Environment Consulting Firm (A$30-$100m)
• Best Built & Natural Environment Consulting Firm (A$100-$200m)
• Best Built & Natural Environment Consulting (>A$200m)
• Best Professional Services Firm (A$30-$100m)
• Best Professional Services Firm (A$100-$200m)
• Best Professional Services Firm (>$200m)
• Best Provider to Construction & Infrastructure
• Best Provider to Financial & Insurance Services
• Best Provider to Government & Community
• Best Provider to Mining, Oil & Gas
• Best Provider to Power & Utilities
• Best Provider to Property
• Best CX Firm: Built & Natural Environment Consulting
• Most Innovative Built & Natural Environment Consulting Firm

For the Built & Natural Environment Consulting Awards listed above you will be competing against other firms who have entered the Built & Natural Environment Consulting category.

For all the other Awards listed above you will be competing against all firms who have entered the Client Choice Awards across all categories (Accounting & Consulting Services, Built & Natural Environment Consulting, Law & Related Services, and Specialist IP & Related Services).

All respondents who complete the survey are informed which firms provided their contact details when they submit their survey. As part of our continuous improvement initiatives, some respondents are also informed in the email invitation before starting the survey. No firm will be affected by this.

Beaton makes the utmost effort to ensure the security of firms’ client lists.

Firstly, Beaton asks clients to transfer their client lists to Beaton using Beaton’s Secure File Transfers Protocol (SFTP). SFTP employs both at-rest and in-transit encryption making sure that the data is secure when resting on the server, and when being uploaded or downloaded. This is done to avoid the inherent security risks associated with transferring files by email, where the email content is not encrypted, and the email can be intercepted.

Second, upon receiving the client lists, these are stored only on secure servers. These servers are encrypted so that if the servers themselves are physically stolen the client files still cannot be accessed. Access to these encrypted servers is restricted to the Beaton research team.

Beaton will destroy the client lists and any copies of it within 24 months of the completion of the survey process unless express instructions to do otherwise are received by Beaton.

Beaton agrees to hold the contents of firms’ client lists confidential and will use the lists only for the purposes of The Client Choice Awards and related research products that are by-products of the survey process, including Beaton Benchmarks and Beaton Compass, unless express instructions to do otherwise are received by Beaton>.

From 2023 onwards, the Client Choice Awards are responding to changes in industry structures by reconfiguring the size bands for three of the four professions we measure.

Big firms are getting bigger, in part by the acquisition of smaller firms and diversification of their services. Mid-size firms are merging in a quest for scale and being better equipped to serve the needs of their clients. The middle is being hollowed out and some previously small firms are growing.

To reflect these industry realities and to maintain a healthy field of candidates in each category, we are updating the $30m-$50m category to $30m-$100m. Accordingly the $50m-$200m category will now become $100m-$200m. Other categories like the best overall firm in a profession and the cross-profession categories of the best firm in six client industries, innovation and CX are not affected.