Businessworld unveils the Most Respected Company Awards

Businessworld, the business magazine owned by the Kolkata-based ABP Group, will unveil India's ‘Most Respected Company' awards, ‘a public felicitation of deserving companies', at a function on Thursday, January 16, at the Oberoi Towers, Mumbai. The event will be inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister of India, LK Advani.

With this, the publication would be converting its 20 years' practice (it began in 1983) of measuring corporate reputation through the ‘Most Respected Survey' into an award. On the day of the event, Businessworld would also unveil its special issue. The issue will carry interviews with the business leaders along with their corporate results.

This award would be based on a Businessworld study - India's Most Respected Company Survey - conducted by the market research agency, IMRB. The survey base included a large cross-section of top management executives across industries to rate companies by over 19 parameters like Top Management Leadership, Ethics, Transparency, Shareholder Value, Social Consciousness, Dynamism and Global Competitiveness, among others.

Apart from the Most Respected Company award and the awards for the first and second runners-up, there are three special awards felicitating the Most Ethical Company, the Most Globally Competitive Company and the Most Dynamic Company. Additionally, there will be 14 other sectoral awards to the Most Respected Company in each sector. These sectors include automobiles, banking and finance, consumer durables, FMCGs, food chains, infotech, infrastructure, media and entertainment, petroleum and petroleum products, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, retail, telecom, and textiles and garments.

Talking about the award ceremony, Aveek Sarkar, chief editor, Businessworld, said, "It was reasoned then that while attributes such as profitability, size and marketshare were important to a company, perhaps the most important, yet most intangible aspect of an organisation was how its peers evaluated it. Thus the ‘Most Respected' survey was born and we are pleased to see that over the years, this survey has become the most comprehensive measure of corporate excellence."

To that, DN Mukerjea, deputy editor, Businessworld, added, "We believe respect in the corporate world is of primary importance. World opinion today on the role of organisation is assuming more significance. This felicitation is an opportunity to show who the role models are and how they are different in their thinking." However, at this stage, the publication is not revealing the names of the companies in the running. "The reason for that is to build excitement around the event," Mukerjea said.

The survey, which has been happening for the last 20 years, comes out with the findings once every two years. According to Businessworld's Most Respected Surveys so far, Hindustan Lever was adjudged ‘The Most Respected Company' in 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1996, TISCO was ‘The Most Respected Company' in the years 1990 and 1992, ACC in 1994, Glaxo in 1999 and Infosys in 2001. © 2003 agencyfaqs!