The Expert Panel

A jury panel came together on September 7, 2016, at Hotel Four Seasons in Mumbai, to discuss and deliberate upon India's fastest growing companies. In the 14th consecutive year, the CW team stepped forward for an event that brings the construction fraternity together, while awarding promising companies that made their mark in the past year. An intrinsic part has also been to recognise and honour the ´CONSTRUCTION WORLD Man of the Year´. A panel comprising eminent honchos from the industry united to deliberate upon the winners of India´s largest and fastest growing construction companies and select the show stealer - CW Man of the Year. To begin with, the jury was presented with the nominations for the ´CW Man of the Year´. Compiled by the CW Editorial Team, these included construction champions who have made remarkable achievements in the year, and through their efforts, have compelled the company, organisation and industry forward. Having culminated into a debate at great length, the final decision was made to announce the award this year under two categories - ´CW Man of the Year-Public Sector´ and ´CW Man of the Year-Private Sector´. Further, as per practice, a report with quantitative analysis of construction companies - data sourced from published annual reports and results published by companies - was presented to the panel to allow them to assess the numbers associated with the companies in each category of fastest growing large or medium or small company. Even in the case of non-listed firms, such data was sourced from the company directly by seeking their audited figures. To ensure authenticity of data during compilation, various checks and balances were put into place. The jury was also informed that the data was further audited selectively to ensure it was error-free. As a prelude to the discussion of selecting India´s fastest growing companies, a presentation on the parameters of the model was made. This included the definition of large, medium and small companies, and the rationale for the choice of companies along with criteria such as cut-off levels for selecting companies in various categories. Companies not considered for the awards were those with insufficient data available; or those that suffered losses in FY2016; or whose figures were derived mainly from ´in-house performance´. While deliberating on the data provided in the category ´Fastest Growing Construction Company-Large´ the panel was of the opinion that, ´delivery´ and ´growth´ should also be a criteria, along with profitability. Discussions also involved considering companies that are doing something different and innovative over those who have been conservative in approach. It was further observed that some companies that featured in the category ´Fastest Growing Construction Company-Medium´ this year, featured in the large category last year. While, in all fairness, the winning companies were selected under this category; a serious balance sheet issue was evident, resulting in an increase in the number of loss making companies. However, the jury was optimistic that with next year being a turnaround time, companies will come up. Further, in the ´Fastest Growing Construction Company-Small´ category, emerging companies made it to leading positions this year. Additionally, the jury made a decision to not consider companies who were major suppliers and did not generate a huge share of the business from contracting activities. In further discussion, the panel agreed that as the objective was to identify the largest and fastest growing companies, the emphasis should be on both top-line and bottom-line growth. Hence, some companies did not make it to the winning list due to a negative growth in profits. After discussing the all-round performance, industry perceptions, and various other concerns of companies during the period under review, some companies that ranked higher in the model were pushed down. In the end, data was comprehensively scrutinised, a decision made, and the list of India´s fastest growing companies is out! (Read on to know the companies that have made it to the list of winners). This concluded yet another year of a successful jury meet, followed by a successful list of winners.