A jury panel came together on September 23, 2014, in Mumbai to deliberate upon India´s fastest growing companies.
For the 12th year running, 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 of the event is to recognise and honour the CW Man of the Year. To deliberate upon the winners in various categories of India´s largest and fastest growing companies and select the show stealer - the Man of the Year - a jury panel came together on September 23, 2014, at the Indian Merchants Chamber of Commerce in Mumbai.
The discussion began with a presentation by the CW team listing the nominations for the ´Man of the Year´. An award initiated in 2010, the aim is to recognise a man who has made remarkable achievements in the year and, through his efforts, propelled his company, organisation and the industry forward. While this culminated into a debate at great length, the panel was also asked to indicate people of their choice that failed to make it on our list. Recommendations were noted and deliberated before a final decision was made. In the process, the jury panel also added a new category - Newsmaker of the Year - nominating an industry stalwart who has peopled the news pages last year for more than just one reason. (To read on the winners for the titles ´Newsmaker of the Year´ &´Man of the Year´ , turn to page 199 & 200 respectively.)
Further, Sunil Damania, Executive Editor, Business India, made a presentation on the companies to be considered for the awards across six categories: Construction; Equipment & Allied Equipment; Cement; Steel; Paints; and Tiles, Ceramics & Sanitaryware. As per practice, a report with quantitative analysis - data sourced from published annual reports and results published by companies - was submitted to the members of the jury much earlier to allow them to assess the numbers associated with the companies in each category. 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.
The presentation by Damania on the parameters of the model was a prelude to the discussion of selecting India´s fastest growing companies. This included a discussion on 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 FY2014; or whose figures derived mainly from ´in-house performance´.
While deliberating on the data provided in the ´Fastest Growing Construction Companies - Large´ category, the members debated on parameters, whether a government-owned company could be considered. The jury was of the view that it was not an apple-to-apple comparison as such a company would have captive funds, the right of first refusal, could get a contract on a nomination basis from various ministries; it would not be an even-playing field. Hence, a decision was made that in the case of a government-owned company, if it did not have a minimum of 50 per cent private projects and right of first refusal, it would not be considered.
In further discussion, while the jury appreciated the consolidated data, the panel agreed that as the objective was to identify the largest and fastest growing companies, the emphasis should be on both topline and bottomline growth. In this way, the jury members discussed the all-round performance of various companies during the period under review and ´industry perceptions´ about them. Some companies ranked higher in the model were pushed down by the jury owing to their concerns on governance.
In the end, data was comprehensively scrutinised, a decision made, and the list of India´s fastest growing companies is out! Read on to meet the companies who have made it to the list of winners.....
