TIME Launches India Awards

December 16, 2015 10:50 AM EST

To recognize notable achievements in manufacturing in one of the world’s fastest growing economies, TIME magazine is launching the TIME India Awards in early 2016.

The awards encompass three categories—excellence in manufacturing, innovation and entrepreneurship—and the winner in each category will be announced at a ceremony in the Indian financial capital Mumbai on Feb. 13 by Norman Pearlstine, Chief Content Officer for Time Inc.

TIME has partnered with top management consulting firm McKinsey & Company to organize the awards. TIME and McKinsey will work together to create a shortlist of three finalists in each category, which will be announced in late January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The three winners from among the nine finalists will then be selected by a jury comprising eminent business leaders from around the world and across industries. “We are pleased to be working with McKinsey to identify the people and companies that are changing the Indian economy, which is the fastest-growing in the world, from the inside out,” Pearlstine said in a statement. “These are dynamic and challenging times for every economy and India is responding proactively and progressively.”

The Indian economy is growing rapidly—in the third quarter of 2015 it surpassed China as the fastest-growing large economy in the world. Manufacturing is growing especially quickly—a fact the TIME India Awards align with, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes his “Make in India” initiative, which aims to boost manufacturing by international companies in India while also promoting homegrown manufacturing.

Rajat Dhawan, senior director at McKinsey & Company in India, said in a statement that the country’s economy is shaping up to be “a bright spot of growth on the global firmament” in the years to come. “Manufacturing in India has the potential to power this growth, and in the process transform millions of lives.”

Update: January 7, 2016

The selection process for the 2016 awards is underway. We have built up a list of achievers selected after careful vetting of over 3,000 companies.

The three award categories are defined as follows:

TIME India Award for Best in Class Manufacturing:The award recognizes an organization in the Indian manufacturing sector that has transformed its business, and the industry in which it operates, through manufacturing superiority. It has achieved this by creating all the building blocks of a sustainable business: Strong operational excellence, superior design & development capabilities, ability to scale up to global standards of quality, sustainable systems and strong corporate governance. The company should have a market presence of at least 5 years and turnover of at least INR 1000 crore (about $160 million).

TIME India Manufacturing Innovator for the year: Recognizes an organization in the Indian manufacturing sector that has built up scale through innovation of products and processes in manufacturing. Our Innovator for the year is a disruptor that has carved out a distinctive niche and established a sustainable platform for future growth.

TIME India Young maker award: This award recognizes an outstanding young entrepreneur from the Indian manufacturing sector, who has displayed the dynamism either to revitalize an existing enterprise and prepared it for a whole new vector of growth OR has established a new enterprise that has carved out a distinctive niche. This person leads a business with revenues of at least INR 250 crore (about $40 million) and would have established a sustainable platform for growth that includes a leadership pipeline, innovation capability and scalability.

The Selection Process:

Step 1: The process begins with building a long list of strong contenders and analyzing their financial performance in terms of shareholder returns and growth. We then arrive at our first cut of nominated companies to be invited for participation in the award process. The nominees will be sent a detailed evaluation form, which will be vetted to check operational and financial performance. We will use proprietary databases and inputs from manufacturing experts to guide the process.

Step 2: This list will be whittled down to select the top three nominees for each category. This evaluation for this will be rigorous and will include detailed interviews with the shortlisted companies.

Step 3: The final stage of our evaluation is by an elite Indian / Global jury that will deliberate on the three nominations and pick a winner in each category. The winners will be announced at the gala event in Mumbai on February 13.

For inquiries about submissions, you can contact Time India here:

TimeIndiaAwards@timeinc.com

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