By Himanshu Yadav
The Sixth EFY Readers’ Choice Awards 2009 was held amidst much fanfare, great enthusiasm, and feasting. The event saw electronics fraternity coming together at the awards ceremony, to laud the best achievements of electronics companies in the country, at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on December 16, 2009.
During the ceremony, awards were presented in 30 categories, including the jury awards. These included ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’, ‘Electronics Personality of the Year Award’, ‘Electronics Organisation of the Year Award’ and ‘Special Jury Award’. Of the 30 categories, 15 categories fell under core electronics, such as oscilliscopes, multimeters, resistors and capacitors, and 12 came under consumer electronics, such as televisions, microwave ovens and DVD players. Sony received six nominations and dominated the evening by winning four awards including car and home music systems. The programme was sponsored by Microteck Technology, Amara Raja and Marg Swarnabhoomi.
The awards that consisted of a trophy each, were presented by the jury members and some VIPs attending the function. The ceremony was attended by the electronics fraternity including members of electronics associations, representatives of brands and captains of industry in large numbers.
EFY Enterprises has stepped into its fifth decade and, being a premiere publishing group for the electronics industry, realises the importance of encouragement and support required by the fledgling electronics hardware industry for its development akin to the support received by the Indian software industry sometime back.
Ever since its inception in 2004, the awards aimed at motivating, supporting and recognising outstanding brands, organisations and individuals, who have acted as catalysts in furthering the growth story of the Indian electronics industry.
Welcoming the nominees, guests and eminent members of the industry, Ramesh Chopra, managing director, EFY Enterprises, said, “The awards have evolved with time in response to the demands of and suggestions received from the stakeholders of the Indian electronics ecosystem and our numerous readers. This year EFY recognised the efforts on ‘Indianisation’ under three broad categories.” These broad categories include:
• Industrial electronics: Comprising categories and products related to industrial consumption
• Consumer electronics: Consisting of products related to consumer usage
• Special jury awards: Aimed at identifying and recognising not only the distinguished and esteemed personalities of the industry but also business entities that have brought about a significant improvement in the Indian electronics industry. In this respect, the ‘Green Organisation of the Year’ award has been included to salute the environment-friendly endeavours related to electronics ecosystem.
Fair assessment
The procedure for nominations and finalising these awards is quite simple. As the name suggests, these awards are based purely on the nominations invited from the readers of Electronics For You magazine, recorded and analysed by IMRB, the leading market research agency.
Explaining the procedure to the audience, Subrato Sarkar of IMRB said, “The selection procedure is totally transparent and based on readers’ perception towards a particular brand. The nominees and winners of EFY Readers’ Choice Awards are selected on the basis of the rankings given by the readers of EFY. The rankings are put together to get the top five nominations and then the winner amongst them is calculated on the basis of the most popular brand voted. The respondents vary across segments, mainly from the electronics industry, professionals and even associations from different parts of the country. In case of a tie between two brands for the same award, the case is referred to the jury, and the winner is selected on the basis of their final vote.”
Eminent jury
The jury members suggest individuals or organisations for the awards, and then a winner is selected from amongst them through a discussion. The jury for the awards comprised Dr Debashish Dutta, senior director, DIT; Dr R.C. Chopra, ex-senior director, DIT and now senior advisor to CII; P. Venkatram, consultant-ICT (ex-Hinditron, Siemens, etc); N.K. Goyal, chairman emeritus, TEMA and now president of CMAI; Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT; Rajoo Goel, secretary general, ELCINA; and wing commander Suresh Khanna, secretary general, CEAMA.
Winner’s glory
The award categories comprised both electronics hardware as well as consumer electronics. While Sony was the clear winner in consumer electronics, Vishay took the lead in components categories winning two awards in the categories of resistors and diodes & transistors. APC led in the categories of inverter & UPS for both industrial and domestic.
The Sixth EFY Readers’ Choice Awards received a positive response and the ceremony concluded on a happy note. While the winners basked in the glory of their success, a grand cultural show including tablawadan by Shobhan Hajra captivated the members of the electronics fraternity. Moreover, the event offered a great networking platform.
