This is the sixth year of East Africa’s Most Respected Companies Survey,
an opinion poll on the region’s business leaders on the topic of “Respect”.
In thissurvey, we seek the business leaders’ opinion on the companies they
respect most, and the reasons why they do so.
As has been the case over the years, we invited a total of 400 business leaders
to participate in the survey. These participants were selected at random from
publicly listed companies as well as large and medium -sized multinational and
national businesses. This year, nearly 300 of the 400 participated in the survey,
the highest response rate so far. To me, this means that the survey continues
to generate immense interest in the business community in East Africa.
The field work was undertaken between August and October 2005, principally
through face-to-face interviews, but in a few cases through written questionnaire
or telephone interview. Professional market-research company Steadmans
Group carried out the survey fieldwork.
This year, we introduced a new category of – country awards. This we
did in response to requests from the business community to provide an opportunity
to recognise businesses that are held in high regard by business leaders based
in
each of the three countries. In total therefore, we have 22 awards to be given
out this year – three for each of the six industry categories, three country
awards and the overall winner award.
Our methodology has remained the same over the years, and one of its hallmarks
is the equalisation process. This is in recognition of the fact that the three
countries in East Africa have economies of varying sizes and therefore it is
not always possible to get the same number of participants from each country.
In order to eliminate the effect of any national biases there may be, we give
weighting to the votes in each of the countries such that the total weight of
the votes from each of the countries is equalised. For example, if country A
has half the number of participants from country B, then a vote from a business
leader in country A get twice the weight that of a vote from a business leader
in country B.
This year, we asked business leaders to name the three most significant challenges
that their businesses face in their day to day operations. It is from this question
that we got our theme for this year’s survey – Turning
challenges into success – recognising that despite the immense
challenges that businesses in the region face, there are exemplars in our midst
that have thrived.
It is these businesses that are able to identify the opportunities that these
challenges present, and to capitalise on those opportunities that have truly
earned the respect of business leaders in the region.
