World of Lights glows atop MPL mid-sized firms award
Ms Kiwanuka (R) hands a plaque to Farmers’ Centre managers at the Friday awards. Photo by Geoffrey Sseruyange
The Top 100 Mid-sized companies 2011 awards brilliantly radiated Friday night not with fireworks but the announcement of the overall winner—World of Lights.
The electronics dealers emerged the third winners of the annual event that started in 2009. The survey, conducted by Synovate Uganda and sponsored by Monitor Publications Limited and KPMG Uganda, seek to recognise and reward the efforts of small and mid-sized companies that perform better than their peers in terms of revenue growth, liquidity and returns on investment.
World of Lights beat Farmers Centre and Case Medical Centre to first and second runners-up places, respectively. The top five places was completed by Prestige Electronics and Computers in fourth and Revolution AD and Design in fifth.
Speaking to Sunday Monitor after receiving the winner’s plaque, Hajj Muhammad Ssebagala, the managing director of World of Lights, also founder and managing director Ssebagala and Sons’ Electronics, said the victory is proof of their hard work over the past years.
“This is an unbelievable feeling for me as this year, the sluggish economy has in some way affected my business,” Hajj Ssebagala said, adding that he is now targeting to expand his business to the large and viable East African market.
Four companies that were in the Top 100 Mid-sized companies last year have graduated to join Club 101 after surpassing the Shs25 billion turnover bracket. They include Verma Company Limited, Desbro (U) Ltd, TTB Investment Ltd and Pearl Engineering Ltd.
Challenging journey
In Uganda, the survey for the Top 100 ‘fastest growing’ mid-sized firms was started in 2009 by Monitor Publications Ltd and KPMG Uganda. BTL Advertising, a public relations and communications firm, was the overall winner of the inaugural event in 2009, while Select Garments, a clothes retailer, took the top honour last year.
This year, Synovate Uganda contacted 600 companies, of which 188 returned filled questionnaires from which the top 100 were selected.
Even though Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have continued to grow overtime contributing up to 60 per cent of gross domestic product, they still face challenges such as power shortage, poor infrastructure, high cost of production, high inflation and failure to access credit.
Speaking at the dinner, Finance minister Maria Kiwanuka applauded the initiators’ of the survey and asked SMEs managers to champion the drive of a SMEs-led private sector.
“I encourage all SMEs to make use of my ministry as we work towards developing SMEs-driven private sector. Working together will enable us remove many of the obstacles that limit faster growth. Remember that the market shows no mercy or favour so we must work together,” Ms Kiwanuka said.
KPMG Country Manager Benson Ndung’u said the survey will continue to search for and reward the best performing SMEs because such entrepreneurs are unsung the heroes of the world that contribute a lot to revenue and jobs creation.
