The 2014 Enterprise 50 Awards

If you are a business owner here in Singapore, what is your greatest dream? To capture the interest of all people and eventually make them your customers, right? That is superficial. Business owners here in Singapore nowadays seek to be in the list of the Enterprise 50 Awards. Have you heard about this award? If not, you should read further.

Enterprise 50 Awards is an annual award giving ceremony that honours visionaries. The award, now on its 20^th year seeks to give honours to private owned companies who exhibit the real essence of enterprise. It was presented in 1995 to identify the next generations of enterprises here in Singapore. The launch event for the 2014 Enterprise 50 Awards was held at Shangri-La Hotel on April 09, 2014. There were more than one hundred SME owners.

If you want to nominate someone, you should know the eligibility requirements of the awards. Here’s what you need to know about the eligibility of Enterprise 50 Awards:

• Home grown: Only the companies that are grown locally should join the awards. For more details about this, you can refer to the Singapore Companies Act. You will have an idea of the companies who are considered “home grown”.
• Parent or subsidiary: The parent or the subsidiary can get nominated. If the parent company joins the nomination, its subsidiary will not be considered. You should also refer to the Singapore Companies Act for more information.
• Not a member of stock exchange: The company should know that if they are a member of stock exchange, their application will be forfeited.
• 30% owned by citizens or residents: 30% of the SME or privately owned company should be owned by residents or citizens.  
• Financial records: The records should be complete upon the application or nomination. The company should possess at least 3 years of financial records.

The winner will be determined based on the following criteria – qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative criteria cover the innovation, standards, business model, productivity, etc. The quantitative criteria cover indicators like growth, turnover, tax and many more. This local award should be the goal of every SME or privately owned companies. Though it is not recognized internationally, the fact that you dominated the local market is a good reason to give importance to this award.

For this year, the nominations are now open. The nomination will end on June 30, 2014. The list will be publicized by the end of the year. SMEs should watch out for this event and of course the gala dinner that will follow.