Anthony de Sa, while congratulating the awardees, spoke on value additions to Goa’s industry and entrepreneurial ecosystem in his keynote address
Ladies and Gentlemen, captains of industry, esteemed award winners, the heart and soul of Business Goa – Harshvardhan Bhatkuly and my dear friends,
It is for me a great pleasure and a singular privilege to be the Chief Guest at this very prestigious annual function of Business Goa at its awards for corporate excellence. This is the 12th edition of these awards.
We are gathered here today for a dual purpose: One, to honour, recognise and congratulate the winners of the awards for corporate excellence; and second, to acknowledge the role that the Business Goa magazine plays in supporting the environment that allows such excellence to flourish. Mary K. Ash, who is perhaps the first woman entrepreneur to become a millionaire almost a hundred years ago, when she started her cosmetics business about 80 years ago, would say there are only two things that people crave for, and those two things are praise and recognition, and this is exactly what the Business Goa Awards does.
The Awards are designed to recognise and to express our collective praise because these awards, of course, reward individuals and institutions for their excellence; but what is more important is that such an annual affair inspires and motivates others to emulate them and do that. The Award winners are important because not only have they done things for their own businesses, but they create jobs. I think in today’s situation, the creation of jobs is perhaps one of the greatest services to society, not just economic but even social benefits that anyone can do and that is why we need to applaud their successful businesses so much.
Business Goa magazine is a magazine not just of advertisements, though it has excellent advertisements; but there are many business magazines that stop at that − at having advertisements and being slickly produced. Business Goa goes not just one step but many steps further, by being a magazine which actually gives solid content. It gives food for thought, it gives ideas for action, it performs a role of advocacy for policy change, and these things are extremely important.
I was going through a few issues which Harsh gave me when he came to invite me to this function and I found so many interesting things in those issues. In his April issue, the editorial talks of ‘digital nomads’- a person who traverses geography to go on and work from home. I know there were many terrible things that COVID-19 gave us, but one of the good spin-offs of that is that it taught us that you can actually transact business through video conferencing, that you can actually work from home and be as productive. Goa has been a great beneficiary of this, we have seen a huge influx of people when they realised they can work from home, they chose to come and live in Goa. A large number of people have come in, real estate has boomed, the restaurant business has boomed and this is a good thing because it is always good to have valuable people come in.
In the April issue of Business Goa, the editorial speaks of perhaps the creation of a sovereign fund to help young entrepreneurs translate their vision into wealth, that is a good idea and we need to think of it. There are new vistas that have opened out in the Goan industry, besides the traditional ones of tourism and hospitality, real estate is booming once again, lifestyle related industries, speciality food restaurants, IT-related industry, education and health. These are big areas and there is no reason why Goa cannot become an educational hub of all kinds of education. It has all the ingredients, including a very salubrious social environment to offer and Goa can do extremely well in becoming an educational hub; a health hub.
Services are extremely important for the Goan economy, however, services take an economy to one level, but not to the next level; hence, manufacturing is extremely important.
Goa has already begun to have industries in areas like auto and pharma, but we also need to look further. Agro industry is a big thing but agriculture unfortunately in Goa is dying. We need to see how we can improve agriculture, how we can mechanise it, how we can bring an agro-industries. I will just draw your attention to something that is a favourite subject of mine which is ESG because I was involved with the Rio Summit thirty years ago and then subsequently twenty years ago with UNEP when they worked out and promoted the ideas of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) goals for industry. The ESG represents a continuous commitment to society, to the environment at large. Thus, it reflects the company’s environmental and social responsibilities; governance is the company’s commitment to its own self and to its own workers to bring in transparency and sensitivity. So, when we talk about corporate excellence, we need also to think of ESG goals and how we are going to commit ourselves to all these three pillars more and more.
We are here to congratulate all these award winners, we are here to stimulate the imagination of entrepreneurs who tomorrow, even if they are not present here, will open the newspaper and when they read about such functions, they will get stimulated and motivated.
I would say that excellence is not a one-time act that just happens. Excellence needs to be made into a habit and I think this is the message that today’s award winners will give aspiring entrepreneurs and other industries that excellence needs to become a habit. We are here to celebrate Business Goa, and celebrate the award winners.
With these words I congratulate all the award winners and Business Goa.
