Oxfordshire's business landscape has been transformed — both literally and figuratively — in the 20 years since the Oxfordshire Business Awards were launched.

The county was emerging from recession, with the Cowley car factory staggering along in its final few years under the Rover brand, having shrunk to leave a vast swathe of 'brownfield' land, ripe for development.

Rover had been sold to BMW in January 1994, with production of the Rover 600, 800 and MG RV8 shifted across the ring-road to the former Pressed Steel site.

The business awards were the brainchild of the car factory's managing director, Paul Kirk, who felt they would give smaller companies a chance to shine.

Stephen Dexter, of business advisers Grant Thornton, another of the prime movers behind the launch, was quoted as saying: "We have come through a long, dark recession where cutbacks and survival were the name of the game, but now we are seeing genuine signs of growth."

The awards were intended to recognise "the battleground for the recovery" — the small and medium size businesses which now make up the backbone of the county's economy, no longer dominated by a single large employer, nor by one industry.

Our launch supplement featured a prominent photograph of Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, looking at a model of 'the Cowley of the future'.

Some 20 years later, the Oxford Business Park, built on the car factory's former North and South Works, is at last at almost full capacity, housing the global headquarters of international aid charity Oxfam, publisher Wiley-Blackwell, Royal Mail, British Gas, HM Revenue and Customs, a hotel and fitness centre.

A Tesco superstore and other retail warehouses are well established on former car storage land east of the ring-road.

When the first awards were launched, he Oxford Bus Company had recently changed hands, and road-builder Amey and schools computer company Research Machines had just floated on the stockmarket.

Few of Oxfordshire's biggest companies are still in the same ownership, but Unipart, another of the original sponsors, has survived in private hands, regrouping itself as a logistics and consultancy group after the demise of Rover, which was the main customer for its car parts.

The future direction of the economy was pinpointed in another photo in the launch supplement — a model of Bicester Village, a pioneering 'outlet' shopping centre, where surplus designer goods were to be offered at discount prices.

Another striking trend is the emergence of women entrepreneurs with a new vision — to run their own business to gain the flexibility to combine work and family life. The line-up of sponsors for the first awards is firmly all-male, yet female-led businesses soon began to dominate the awards ceremony.

One sign of the times was the 2003 winner, Child & Co, a chain of nurseries founded by Lesley and Ian Millar, who built up the business before selling to US group Bright Horizon.

While consumer and service industries dominate, Oxfordshire's manufacturing sector has begun the long fight back, with high-tech start-ups leading the way.

The Oxford Science Park was started just a few years before the awards were launched. One of the early winners was Software 2000, which sold floppy discs (remember them?) allowing computers to send instructions to printers.

Since then, computers have entered business life so completely that it is difficult to say which firms fall into the IT sector while technological breakthroughs have sparked a range of new business opportunities, with small businesses taking advantage of the relative cheapness of social marketing and online sales.

For example, the 2008 winner, ByBox, was founded by Stuart Miller to cash in on the Internet shopping revolution by providing a network of lockers where customers can pick up goods ordered online.

The first winner, in 1995, was Banbury car rally firm Prodrive — still racing ahead — and the county's motor industry history is still paying dividends in its role at the heart of 'motorsport valley'.

From its origins in a small business unit at Silverstone running Porsche 911s, Prodrive today is a multi-national business employing nearly 800 people in the UK, Australia, Thailand and China.

While it roots are in motorsport, more than half the company’s £100m turnover now comes from its activities in the mainstream automotive sector.

Today it is working on programmes ranging from innovative electric and flywheel hybrid technology for future vehicles, to the design and assembly of high performance cars for Ford Australia. Its client base now includes businesses in the aerospace, marine and defence sectors.

The 2007 winner, Crompton Technology Group, also rooted in the motorsport industry, set up a centre of excellence in Banbury earlier this year to exploit technological breakthroughs in manufacturing advanced composite products and systems in volume quantities across a range of high-tech industries.

And the last two winners, Oxford Instruments and Owen Mumford, prove that the county is still building on its industrial heritage.

Both are manufacturing companies which have been in Oxfordshire for decades, having weathered the ups and downs of the economy, and entered the awards partly to recognise their loyal workforce, to whom they attribute much of their success.

Jarl Severn, managing director of Owen Mumford, said: “It is testament to our loyal employees’ hard work and commitment that we have achieved such success. I know every one of us is proud to be working for Oxfordshire’s Business of the Year 2013.”

As for the awards, they have grown to become the premier event in the county's business calendar.

" Entry for the 2014 awards is free online at www.oxfordshirebusinessawards.co.uk.

The deadline is Friday, February 28.