NBHC's first employee awards programme, built across four cities

The framework was called 'Excellence in Action'. Rather than a generic Employee of the Year, each category was tied to a business priority (innovation, customer focus, operational excellence, teamwork and leadership), so winning read as strategic validation rather than arbitrary selection. The visual identity was bold and energetic, but kept to a professional tone suited to a commodities corporation.

ICE India proposed a modular design. Each city had a full-day team-building offsite followed by an evening ceremony, so that recognition sat inside culture-building and strategic communication instead of standing alone. The awards structure, programme flow and production standard stayed the same everywhere. Entertainment, food and cultural references changed with the city.

Mumbai is where NBHC's headquarters sits, which made stakeholder access and planning approvals simple. ICE India recommended it as a pilot with two jobs: deliver for the senior leadership team, and prove the programme to the people who would decide on the other cities. The venue was a premium suburban hotel, The Westin, with outdoor space for the team building and a ballroom for the ceremony.

Hosting leadership first meant decision-makers experienced the programme directly. After the pilot NBHC awarded ICE India the remaining three cities, and what was learned in Mumbai and Hyderabad went into Jaipur and Bhopal.

Registration areas displayed the previous quarters' achievements, and welcome kits held the schedule, team-building instructions and branded items. NBHC leadership opened the day by placing the activities in the wider strategy.

Generic rope courses and trust exercises were avoided. Teams worked through business simulations that mirrored NBHC's daily work: supply chain puzzles, resource allocation under constraints, and collaboration across functions. Each activity ended with a facilitated debrief linking the experience to a strategic priority. A mid-day session had leadership present the year's strategy, with the morning's activities having put participants in a receptive frame of mind.

Employees returned to their rooms to change, which marked the shift from casual to formal. The ballroom had been transformed with lighting, staging and branding. The ceremony opened with a video montage of the year's achievements and leadership remarks connecting the awards to strategy.

There was no head table. A theatre-style layout kept recipients visible throughout. Each category had a staged reveal: nominees announced with a short description of their contribution, a video of colleagues explaining why the person deserved it, then the winner called to the stage for the trophy and a brief speech. Between categories there were performances by professional artists reflecting each region's cultural identity, and surprise acknowledgments of behind-the-scenes contributors. The programme ran about three hours across 15+ categories and closed by positioning recognition as an annual commitment.

For every city ICE India sourced venues with indoor and outdoor flexibility, suitable capacity, good food and beverage service, and convenient airport access and accommodation. The Westin's grounds suited Mumbai, a resort with team-building infrastructure suited Hyderabad, a heritage hotel gave Jaipur its setting, and Bhopal's property offered conference space that could be adapted.

ICE India handled accommodation, transport coordination, dietary requirements and real-time support for employees travelling in.

The Mumbai event was documented in detail: timeline milestones, vendor specifications, production requirements, staffing plans, risk mitigation and contingency protocols. That let the format be replicated efficiently, while local market knowledge in each city allowed customisation where it counted. Each later city refined the one before.

Local customisation was the point. Because the entertainment, food and cultural references changed in each city, employees felt their event had been designed for them, not copied from another office.

The relationship continued after 2016. In 2019 ICE India ran NBHC's annual employee offsite, with updated team-building formats, revised award categories and fresh entertainment on the structure employees already knew.

ICE India's award ceremony event management team plans recognition programmes in one city or several. The pilot ran in Mumbai.