We are proud to share some great news. Hixon Group has won a Gold Award at the 2026 EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards. We achieved this alongside Keele Business School and the North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce.
This recognition has been awarded for the Staffordshire Cyber Resilience Programme, a collaborative initiative designed to help small and medium-sized businesses improve their cyber security and reduce real-world risk.
What this means for our customers
This award matters because it directly improves the service we deliver to you.
At Hixon Group, we use the same work behind this programme to strengthen your protection. As a result, you benefit from better tools, clearer reporting, and stronger security advice. For example:
- Stronger protection against cyber threats
- Clearer, more accessible risk reporting and guidance
- Improved security awareness and training tools
- Faster identification and reduction of vulnerabilities
In short, the work behind this award is helping us continuously improve the support and protection we provide to our customers.
A globally recognised achievement
The EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards are an internationally respected benchmark for impactful partnerships between organisations and education providers.
In 2026, only a small number of business schools worldwide received a Gold Award, highlighting the significance of this collaboration and its measurable impact.
You can view the official winners announcement here.
Partnership and regional leadership
A key strength of the programme has been the collaboration between industry, academia, and regional organisations.
Alongside Keele Business School and Hixon Group, the initiative has been shaped and supported by several key partners who have helped ensure its real-world impact and accessibility for local businesses.
Dr Colin Rigby played a central role in connecting academic research with practical cyber resilience challenges faced by SMEs, helping to ensure the programme remained grounded in real business needs.
Chris Plant supported engagement with the local business community, helping to embed the programme into trusted regional networks and ensuring it reached the organisations that would benefit most.
Geoff Beadle contributed through the allocation of local funding via Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, helping to enable the development and delivery of the programme as part of wider efforts to strengthen digital capability and economic resilience across the borough.
Together, this partnership has helped turn academic insight, public sector support, and industry expertise into practical cyber security improvements for businesses across Staffordshire.
Improving cyber resilience across the region
The Staffordshire Cyber Resilience Programme supports SMEs that often lack dedicated cyber security teams. However, these businesses still face growing cyber threats.
The programme combines:
- Free cyber security training and assessment tools
- Support embedded into local business services and education
- A natural-language reporting system to simplify complex cyber risk data
Within six months, the programme reached over 5,000 users, helping organisations better understand and reduce their cyber risk.
Real-world impact
The initiative has already delivered measurable improvements, including:
- Increased multi-factor authentication adoption by 73%
- A significant reduction in reported cyber incidents
- Improved visibility of cyber risks for participating organisations
- Wider access to practical cyber security guidance and tools
These outcomes continue to influence how we develop and deliver security services for our customers.
Looking ahead
For us, this award is more than recognition, it reflects our ongoing commitment to improving the security, resilience, and support experience we provide every day.
We’ll continue working closely with partners and customers to turn real-world insight into better protection, better tools, and better support.
If you need help reviewing your cyber security or improving your organisation’s resilience, our support team is always here to help.
