KUALA LUMPUR, 20 September 2011: HomeGuru Sdn Bhd via its online business portal HomeGuru.com.my, Malaysia's property expert, has been honoured with the Online Business Award (Gold) at the inaugural South East Asian SME Tiger Awards held today as part of the two-day South East Asian SME Forum at the Prince Hotel Kuala Lumpur.The Online Business Award category is presented to the organisation that has demonstrated the most significant online growth in 2010, with its factors for evaluation comprising online transactions, site visitors and referrals.
Receiving the award at the presentation ceremony was Steve Melhuish, Group CEO of PropertyGuru Group in Singapore, who said, "It's amazing to be recognised and rewarded by such an award so soon as it is the first time one of our ‘new' countries has picked up an industry accolade and with it happening less than a year since we established HomeGuru Sdn Bhd, we are beyond honoured and proud."
Melhuish added, "Winning the gold SME Tiger Award for Online Business is a real testament to the hard work, commitment and success demonstrated by the Malaysia Gurus. In 11 months, we've cemented our presence in the highest ranks of a very competitive environment, built an awesome team of Gurus, opened three offices (in Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Penang), joined forces with FullHouse.com.my in Penang, grown traffic to almost 500,000 buyers viewing 4.5 million pages and most importantly, kick-started the inception of a well-recognised HomeGuru brand!"
Present at the award presentation ceremony as well was HomeGuru Country Manager Steven Tan who noted, "This acknowledgement by a panel of judges from the South East Asian business arena spurs our team at HomeGuru to further make a mark as the go-to property expert portal in Malaysia."
Tan also attributed the on-going success of HomeGuru to the holistic efforts of the PropertyGuru network, especially towards "the unrelenting support from our organisation's Singapore-based teams in content, IT, editorial and marketing over the last 11 months."
Taking home the Silver and Bronze Online Business Awards respectively were AYS and Malaysia Microelectronic Solutions.
Established by leading French business information group naseba, the inaugural South East Asian SME Tiger Awards are designed to recognise and reward the best-performing SMEs in the region for their outstanding achievements.
The SEA SME Tiger Awards celebrate the success and acknowledge the vital role of SMEs as the backbone of South East Asian economies, with eight categories as follows:
• Online Business Award
• Marketing Excellence Award
• Human Assets Award
• Innovation Award
• Sustainability Award
• Business Integrity Award
• Dynamic Growth Award
• Golden Tiger Award
Finalists were selected by an independent judging panel consisting of SME Corporation Malaysia, MALAYSIA SMETM, Telekom Malaysia and Amanah Digital Media.