Business Today-YES BANK presents SME Survey & Awards

YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank and Business Today (BT), India’s No. 1 business magazine, announced Winners across 8 categories of the BT – YES BANK SME Awards 2013 at a prestigious ceremony held in New Delhi.

iConcept Software Services Pvt. Ltd. was presented with the Star SME Award – Overall (up to Rs. 50 Crore) and Vidya Herbs Pvt. Ltd the Star SME Award – Overall (Rs. 50 - 200 Crore) by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Union Minister for Communications & Information Technology, Law & Justice in the presence of senior Government officials, and industry leaders.

The BT – YES BANK SME Survey & Award recognizes growth-focused, innovative SMEs and the objective of this initiative is to bring together, recognize and reward achievers, innovators and enablers to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit.

Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK said “For the past 5 consecutive years, YES BANK has been partnering with Business Today for the prestigious SME Survey and Awards which recognizes stellar accomplishments of SMEs in innovation, governance and business excellence. The Government’s recent vision to encourage innovation by allocating Rs. 10,000 Crore for establishment of a Venture Capital fund for MSMEs will help create necessary enablers for Indian MSMEs to compete on a global scale. Through these Awards, it is our humble endeavor to honour vibrant organizations which are playing a pivotal role in promoting entrepreneurship in India.”

Key highlights of the Address by Chief Guest, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon'ble Union Minister for Communications and IT, Law and Justice, delivered at the 5th BT-YES BANK Best SME Survey & Awards:

India is at the cusp of Digital Revolution and Shri Narendra Modi’s view that IT (India Today) + IT (Information Technology) is equal to IT (India Tomorrow) is of great significance to everyone.

Through National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN), the Government plans to reach 50,000 to 60,000 gram panchayats in 2014 followed by 1 lakh each in 2015 and 2016. Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Power Grid Corporation and RailTel are working towards this goal.

There is a huge future for e-commerce in India and by bringing Digital Technology at the village level and remotest corners of the country, it will give rise to trade and warehousing – ‘people will be clicking and receiving’. There is a great scope for SME’s in this space and particularly in electronics.

There is an intention to target zero imports in electronics manufacturing – including set-top boxes, mobiles, amongst others. The Government has setup 8 manufacturing clusters to support this initiative and also opened up the manufacturing sector in the area of defense.

Prime Minister is creating an enabling atmosphere so that manufacturing sector can grow and through this Digital Revolution, this sector can provide jobs to 2 crore people.

Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Facilitation make a country and the YES BANK – BT SME awards gives an incentive for SME’s to do well.

The Best SME Survey was conducted by YES BANK and Business Today and Winners were identified through a robust three-stage evaluation process. This included short listing from over 500 quality applications on the basis of quantitative analysis of FY13 financials, qualitative analysis of corporate governance & CSR and a final round of discussion by an eminent Jury Panel comprising of Shri Madhav Lal (Secretary, MSME), Shri Ashish Chauhan (CEO, BSE), Shri Sachin Nigam (President & Business Head, CRISIL Ratings – SME) and Shri Rajiv Luthra (Managing Partner, Luthra & Luthra Law Offices). Grant Thornton was the process validator for the Awards.

Winners of the BT - YES BANK SME Awards 2013