Management and staff of Britam Group celebrate during the Company of the Year Awards gala night at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi on November 8, 2013 after the firm was declared the Overall Company of the Year (COYA) Award winner. SALATON NJAU
What you need to know:
The awards mark a milestone for the two since it is their first time to be crowned winners in the annual event with Boma chain of hotels being the pioneer winner for the new SMOYA award that was launched on Friday.
Britam and Boma Hotel are the new champions of this year’s Company of the year Award (COYA) and Small and Medium Enterprise of the Year Award (SMOYA) respectively, depicting their exemplary business practices in the categories the duo were assessed.
The awards mark a milestone for the two since it is their first time to be crowned winners in the annual event with Boma chain of hotels being the pioneer winner for the new SMOYA award that was launched on Friday.
Last year, Britam grabbed the second position behind Toyota Kenya in the COYA awards whose key objective is to assess performance of companies in certain areas for purposes of benchmarking them against global business metrics in order to boost competitiveness and yield excellence in companies’ practices.
The duo, according to judges, met the threshold for top recognition in the country which required a firm to garner at least 50 per cent in the category of governance and above the cut-point (50 per cent) in the rest.
The Kenya Institute of Management (KIM), the brainchild of COYA and SMOYA, uses an assessment tool – Organisational Performance Index (OPI) - to rate performance of businesses on a scale of 1 to 10, with the latter as the highest score.
With the index, KIM measures firms’ performance based on seven parameters commonly known as categories.
Speaking during gala night, Peter Muthoka, the chairman, KIM Board of Fellows emphasised the importance of healthy coexistence between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies in line with this year’s theme dubbed “Celebrating viable collaborations.”
“We recognise the role of small and medium enterprises in entrepreneurship and wealth creation,” he said. “In this regard, large corporates should not shy away from collaborating with small and medium players.”
His sentiments were echoed by Patrick Mwangi, the acting CEO of Micro and Small Enterprise Authority.
“If you want to know how competitive Kenya will be tomorrow, look at the micro and small enterprises sector.”
Twenty-five large companies participated in this year’s evaluation while 15 SMEs — businesses with turnover of below Sh1 billion — contested.
However, it was noted, since 2010 when OPI was introduced in the assessment of firms, none of the overall winners has attained a score of eight, considered as the gold mark.
Toyota Kenya, last year’s overall winner, scored 6.7 out of a possible 10 points, while Britam this year has managed to garner six points, a climb down.
Britam and Boma emerged tops in the category of leadership and management in their respective groups with the former bagging another award in customer orientation and marketing.
In the financial management category, Gulf Africa Bank claimed the top spot in companies’ award and Taifa Sacco in that of SMEs alongside in human resource management category.
Pewin Cabs Ltd won two categories in SMOYA – customer orientation and marketing and productivity and quality.
Other winners are Crown Paints Kenya and Lean Energy Solutions (innovation, information and knowledge management) with the win being another feather to the hat of the latter after beating 100 other SMEs to emerge tops in recent Top 100 SMEs survey.
Gulf Africa Bank (productivity and quality), AAKI Consultants Ltd which is a small enterprise and Githunguri Dairy (corporate citizenship and environment) also had something to carry home.
Jubilee Insurance bagged COYA’s human resource management award.
Laptrust CEO Hosea Kiili, for the second year in a row was named the runners up in the CEO of the year category.
The CEO of the year award went to Britam managing director Benson Wairegi for having demonstrated exemplary stewardship of the firm, according to judges who comprised those from Malaysia.
John On’gech, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Kenyatta National Hospital bagged the Kirit Dave Award manager of the year, an award that pays tribute to the late Kirit Dave, a successful entrepreneur and member of KIM Board of Fellows.
This year’s edition of COYA was sponsored by Nation Media Group (NMG), Chandaria Foundation, Old Mutual, Brussels Airlines and Keroche Breweries among others.
While acknowledging the importance of SMOYA award launch, Magu Ngumo, general manager QTV Nation Broadcasting Division said the new award platform would strengthen the country’s SME sector.
“SMEs constitute over 80 per cent of employment opportunities in the country hence need for recognition,” he said.
