Innovation, green practices and entrepreneurial potential – these are three areas central to a region-wide business survey launched for Channel NewsAsia’s Luminary Awards.

The network is partnering with industry leaders such as Deloitte, GreenA Consultants and Singapore Management University (SMU), to set a unique benchmark for corporate practices across Asia.

Designed by academics and industry experts, the comprehensive survey will not only scrutinise thousands of companies across Asia, but provide a future benchmarking tool for business.

Ms Debra Soon, Managing Director of Channel NewsAsia, added that the top achievers will be recognised at the Channel NewsAsia Luminary Awards in March next year.

“We believe the accolade will go some way towards establishing good business practices in Asia,” she said.

The benchmarking system provides a way to quantify the attributes of Innovation, Green Practices and Future Business. Analytics methodology is then applied to the data. Channel NewsAsia’s knowledge partners will provide category definition and will act as subject matter experts.

Donovan Castillo Mohlman, Channel NewsAsia Vice President, Network Programming & Promotions, said: “Channel NewsAsia wants to join with our world-class partners to measure the standard of business throughout Asia.

“We recognised that there really wasn’t a benchmark survey where we’re able to measure the green (practices), innovation and future of companies that are head-quartered in Asia.”

The survey will open for a month from October 24, and will be conducted online at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/survey. Questions cover key areas like financial performance, creativity, innovation, social responsibility and sustainability issues.

Farizan D’Avezac de Moran, Senior Partner at GreenA Consultants, explained that the survey will look at all aspects of the value chain, including policies and targets for the company.

She said: “We look at the identity of the company that wants to pursue green (practices), not purely as an investment objective but [believing] that it’s a sustainable effort in the future.”

With the volume and speed at which innovation now hits the market, Professor Desai Narasimhalu, Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU, believes the survey could give some invaluable insights.

“We really want to find out whether companies have the ability to think about innovation opportunities in the shortest possible time and are able to assemble a team that can then plan, design and deliver the innovation in the shortest possible time,” he said.

Deloitte Analytics will evaluate the results, derive a diagnosis for each company and rank them.

Chaly Mah, Chief Executive Officer (Asia Pacific) at Deloitte, said: “We do believe that over a period of time, the survey will actually transform into something that is very useful to the participants, to help them manage their business much better.”

“I think it is a good way for us to use analytics to help analyse the data that we collected, provide some feedback and benchmarking to the participants so that they could actually develop their own strategy, to help them become the best players in the field of innovation, the green agenda and in entrepreneurship.”

The Channel NewsAsia Luminary Awards will honour achievements in four categories: the Innovation Luminary Award; Green Luminary Award; Future Business Luminary Award; and the Lifetime Achievement Luminary Award.

Source: CNA