More than 200 SMEs had put themselves in line to win a free listing on the JSE's AltX exchange, consulting services and business software to the value of more than R14 million, when entries for the Go4Growth competition closed on Sunday.
The Go4Growth winner will be announced on 14 November.
Go4Growth is the first such competition and the R14 million prize is the largest of its kind yet offered in South Africa. Go4Growth is supported by four partners: business software leader SAP, the JSE, Exchange Sponsors, official sponsors of the AltX, and business consultancy firm SAP BusinessEdge.
Derek Kudsee, director of SAP's SME business in Africa, says the final tally of Go4Growth entrants is 206, well beyond initial estimates of the number of companies that might enter the competition.
"The response to Go4Growth shows there is an exceptionally strong core of SMEs that have the ambition and commitment needed to achieve high levels of growth.
"Also pleasing is the broad range of companies that entered. We've had responses from companies with annual turnover ranging from start-up to R500 million. Entries have come from more than 20 different industry sectors, including IT, engineering, transport, industrial and medical, as well as companies of all sizes ranging from one employee right through to companies with 500-plus people," says Kudsee.
Assessment of entries has begun and Graham Perry, SAP BusinessEdge director, says the ultimate winner will be the company that shows the most commitment towards growth. "An additional critical emphasis in the assessments will be that the entrant should also be established with a trading history, although this is not a requirement for an AltX listing," he says.
Having filled in the online entry form, entrants have been completing the first part of an enterprise situation assessment. Once this has been completed, consultants analyse the data and entrants are requested to go through to the next part of the process in which a business diagnostic survey is submitted and once again analysed.
From this point a short-list of the top 20 entrants will be compiled and then invited to attend a one-day workshop. At this workshop the top five finalists will be selected, with the winner to be announced on 15 November.
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