Winning Company, Winning Ways All this with the SFA
Author:
Cian Molloy
Are you involved with a little gem of a company? If so, you should nominate it for a Small Firms Association Award, which could earn it some well-deserved publicity and €15,000 worth of prize money. CIAN MOLLOY reports.
Since they were first established in 2005 under the patronage of An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the annual SFA Awards have succeeded in highlighting and rewarding excellence in small Irish businesses more than any other initiative. Any company winning an SFA Award is guaranteed national, and even international, publicity for their endeavours, while also gaining additional business savvy in the form of strategic management training. Win or lose, SFA director Patricia Callan says that entering the competition is of benefit to any business, because filling out the application form requires managers to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of their business plans and they benefit further when those business plans are interrogated by the panel of independent judges who decide who the individual category winners and the overall winner will be.
The ICAI has been involved in sponsoring the event, which is now under the patronage of An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, for the last two years and this year it will be the sponsor of the ‘services sector’ category in the competition. Communications and marketing director, Rónán O’Brien, says ICAI’s involvement is a direct result of the strategic decision taken several years ago to be ‘more proactive in publicising the qualifications and the certification of Institute members,’ qualifications that make Chartered Accountants the ideal business advisors for any enterprise, large or small.
In addition to sponsoring the awards and the gala prize-giving ceremony via their membership fees, ICAI and the SFA are looking for more direct involvement from Chartered Accountants.
Nominate
“We would like to see accountants nominate companies who might win an award,” says O’Brien. “Whether they be accountants who are leading small firms, who are employed by small firms or who have excellent small firms among their client lists.”
Accountants in practice especially are well placed to act as nominees, says Callan. “Many entrepreneurs think that their business wouldn’t be good enough to win an award, even though they may be running an excellent business,” she says. “But an accountant from outside the firm will be able to see the big picture and will see that they have outstanding qualities that put them ahead of other enterprises. Accountants are also very influential people – if they recommend to a business that they enter the SFA Awards, most likely that business will. In fact, an accountant could pre-register a company for entry into the competition via our website www.sfa.ie/awards and we will follow that up and make direct contact with that company. Entry is open to all small businesses employing 50 people or less, whether that business is a member of the Small Firms Association or not.”
Previous winners of the overall SFA Award have been: Aran Candy, trading as The Jelly Bean Factory, who announced a deal to supply Harry Potter Jelly Beans in the United States on the night of last year’s awards ceremony; Gerkros Boilers, a familyowned firm that has ‘re-invented itself repeatedly’, according to Callan, and which now supplies renewable-energy heating systems; First Ireland Spirits, the largest Irish-owned manufacturer of alcoholic drinks, who have a huge export market but who were previously virtually unknown in this country; and MrCrumb, a speciality food manufacturer.
This year, the number of awards on offer has been increased from six to seven. In addition to the overall award, for firms with up to five employees there is the ‘outstanding small business award’ and for firms with up to 50 employees there are three sectoral categories – manufacturing, food and drink and services – plus awards for ‘best human resources development’ and for ‘best environmental sustainability’.
“There is a category for everybody,” says Callan. “The largest number of SMEs in Ireland are working in the services sector, so naturally enough that is the category that gets the most entries each year, but the judges can decide to cross refer any entry from one category into another category if that is thought to be appropriate.”
This year the independent judging panel is chaired by the joint MD of Aalto Bio Reagents, Aidan O’Boyle, with the other judges being: Oaktree Press MD, Brian O’Kane, UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business Professor of Entrepreneurship, Frank Roche, Shabra Plastics MD, Rita Shah, Irish Independent business editor, Maeve Dineen and Environmental Business Advice MD, Mairead Cirillo. Until now, all small firms entering the competition had to be in business for two years or more, so that the judges could examine their accounts, but in response to demand there will now be a separate competition, run in parallel with the main awards and in association with the country’s City & County Enterprise Boards, for startups that demonstrate the potential to become outstanding enterprises.
Improvements
In response to feedback from previous winners and finalists, the SFA has added two new benefits to doing well in the competition: a residential strategic management course and a one-day media-training course.
“The finalists were telling us that the only time they really got to meet and talk to one another was at the prize ceremony’s gala dinner, but that they felt they could benefit from networking more and learning from each other, so that is why we are introducing the strategic management training this year.
“The contestants also said that while they welcomed the media exposure, for many of them it was the first time they were getting access to free media coverage rather than paid for advertising and some of them were a bit nervous about talking to journalists, so we are now including media training for the finalists.
“You couldn’t put a value on the media exposure and the branding opportunities that being an award winner, or even a short listed finalist, give you. The coverage is across the board – all the national newspapers, local and regional press and radio, the business press, trade journals, RTE’s Morning Ireland and Newstalk’s Down to Business, plus coverage in a special SFA Awards supplement published with The Irish Independent newspaper.
“It’s a big boost to exporters to be able to say to their overseas customers that they have won a major national award in Ireland. People are very interested in reading and hearing about these successful companies. They make great role models for people starting up in business and, generally, everybody likes a good news story. We particularly need good news stories in these challenging times.”