Banco Santander, chaired by Ana Botín, and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce have launched the seventh edition of the ‘SME of the Year Award’.
This award seeks to value the work of small and medium-sized companies as creators of wealth and employment within the Spanish labor and business environment.
The SME of the Year Award is convened in all Spanish provinces, and thirteen territorial delegations of Banco Santander, 52 territorial Chambers of Commerce, and the main local press outlets participate in its organization.
At the level of each province, an SME of the Year is selected, and the jury can also award four second prizes in the categories of Internationalization, Innovation and Digitization, Training and Employment, and Sustainable SME.
The company chosen in each province will participate in the 2023 National SME of the Year Award, the winner of which will be announced in the first quarter of 2024. In addition, the winning companies of the different second prizes will compete in the National Award in their respective categories.
The deadline for submitting applications for the SME of the Year 2023 award begins this Wednesday, March 1, and ends on April 14, except in the provinces of Albacete, La Rioja, Murcia, and Zamora, where the registration period begins on September 1 and ends on October 13.
The SME of the Year Award from Banco Santander and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce is open to all small and medium-sized companies with less than 250 employees with an annual turnover of less than 50 million euros in the year 2022, and with headquarters in the province in which they occur.
Companies interested in these awards will have to fill out a registration form, available on the website of the Chamber of Spain and the participating Chambers of Commerce, where the contest rules also appear.
Companies will be valued for aspects such as job creation; training activities for employees; internationalization; digitization and innovation initiatives, or sustainable projects in which they have participated.
The SME of the Year Award from Banco Santander and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce was launched in 2017, and since then, a total of 7,436 SMEs have participated. In 2022, the sixth edition of the award was held, in which 1,766 companies from the 50 provinces and the Autonomous City of Ceuta registered, with the participation of 49 territorial Chambers of Commerce.