compareit4me.com, the Middle East’s leading financial comparison site, recently picked up top honours at two of the region’s most prestigious business award ceremonies.
The company earned the Business Innovation of the Year Award at the Gulf Capital SME Awards 2016, organised by leading business title MEED. Then, the next day, compareit4me.com was named the overall winner at the Stars of Business Awards 2016, beating out dozens of the region’s most promising small to medium-sized enterprises for the top spot.
At the Gulf Capital SME Awards, the dozens-strong judging panel, made up of the region’s top business analysts, investors and figureheads, were won over by the innovative technology behind compareit4me.com’s insurance comparison platform, which launched in March 2016.
“With the technology behind our insurance comparison platform – which we call the ratings engine – we’ve brought insurance comparison to a region where it technically shouldn’t exist. Of course, our main reward for that achievement has been a fantastic response from consumers, who really are saving money on their insurance, and have driven an incredible growth in sales this year,” said Jonathan Rawling, CFO at compareit4me.com.
“But it’s so important to have been recognised by the region’s business leaders for our hard work as well. For our business, the technology truly has been transformational, and as the platform expands, consumers in the Middle East will be better off – not just because they’ll save money on their insurance but because the platform also enables higher levels of financial literacy. And I think
that, to have that seal of approval from an initiative like the Gulf Capital SME Awards, it shows that we’re really onto something.”
The Gulf Capital SME Awards is organised by MEED, which publishes one of the leading premium-content business titles in the region, offers business consultancy services, and organises first-class business events. The judging process for this awards initiative is long and arduous, with a large panel of independent adjudicators reviewing all entries in a two-stage process. The first stage sees judges conduct an in-depth review of all submitted entries, while the second consists of face-to-face interviews with a representative from the entrant company. compareit4me.com passed each stage with flying colours.
And just one day after the Gulf Capital SME Awards ceremony, compareit4me.com was named Star of Business, the overall winner, at the Stars of Business Awards 2016, organised by publishing house CPI Business. The initiative has been running for 11 years, with award nominations audited by professional services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers using a patented methodology.
“To emerge as the overall winner after having our business analysed under such a stringent methodology is no mean feat, so we’re extremely proud of the outcome. Our business is growing at an incredible rate this year, and we were able to demonstrate that to the judging panel with concrete numbers, in line with our commitment to bringing more transparency to the Middle Eastern finance market,” said Samer Chehab, COO at compareit4me.com.
“However, we believe that having impressive numbers is only half of the battle when it comes to building up a successful business. What’s just as important is ensuring that your business is built on a firm set of core values, which every individual can take to heart. We’re doing that every day at compareti4me.com, and winning awards like this simply goes to show that such a strategy is really paying off.”