Melbourne South East Small Business of the Year 2013

Small Business of the Year

Tonight we were awarded the Small Business Award for 2013 at the Melbourne’s South East Business Awards.

 

Melbourne's South East Small Business Award 2013

MSE Small Business Award 2013

The prize was given jointly to us and Gaia Skin Naturals who were Casey Business of the Year 2012.

 

Small Business Awards 2013

Small Business Award 2013

It was a fabulous dinner at the Frankston Arts Centre and we were pleased to be there with a great bunch of friends and colleagues to celebrate the night.

 

Successful Endeavours Friends And Colleages

MSE Small Business Award 2013

Above we have Graeme & Sharon Lauridsen, Junette & Ray Keefe, Matt And Bec Ratten, Lei and JayJay Shi. And our thanks to Ross & Jenny Neilson who took the photo and also joined us to celebrate.

 

The Melbourne South East regions consists of the following councils:

 

  • Cardinia Shire Council
  • City of Casey
  • City of Greater Dandenong
  • City of Kingston
  • Frankston City Council
  • Knox City Council
  • Maroondah City Council
  • Monash City Council
  • Mornington Peninsula Shire
  • Whitehorse City Council

 

And looking back on it, I realise that we spent an evening in a room full of businesses that are looking forward; who are trying to be part of the solution, not the problem. Because those are the kind of businesses that engage with the business awards process, who keep trying to improve themselves. Thinking about it, two years ago we were finalists for Melbourne’s South East Small Business of the Year and two years later we are joint winners. So that is progress. But everyone else present is doing the same. I felt very encouraged, not just because we came home with a trophy, but because so many other businesses are working hard to make this a better world.

 

And now a few thank yous.

 

First of all to Junette Keefe who owns and runs Successful Endeavours with me. We could not have achieved any of this without her support and tireless attention to detail. Any typos I put into this post will probably be fixed before you even look at it because she will sort it out.

 

And also to the rest of the team at Successful Endeavours, who have joined with me to create world class electronics products for Australian Electronics Manufacturers.

 

And our thanks go to the City of Casey and the Economic Development Department who have put together the Casey Business Awards process and been such proactive supporters of local business.

 

And to Dr Marc Dussault, The Exponential Growth Strategist, our business mentor, who has taught us how to build a successful business. We are outstanding engineers but they don’t teach you anything about running and building a business when you study engineering. Marc has taught us what we could not have learned on our own and held us to the highest standards so that we can be as good at business as we are at engineering.

 

And finally, to Arthur Cherrie, who first planted the thought in my mind that I could be excellent at business, long before I believed it myself. We all owe a great deal to those who have encouraged us.

 

And thank you to you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you are encouraged.

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2013 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Melbourne’s South East Business Awards 2013

Melbourne’s South East Business Awards

We have just been notified that we are finalists in two categories for the Melbourne’s South East Business Awards for 2013. The MSE categories are:

 

  • Business Growth and Development
  • Small Business

 

We are pretty pleased with this following on from our win the the Casey Business Awards 2012.

 

The Melbourne South East regions consists of the following councils:

 

  • Cardinia Shire Council
  • City of Casey
  • City of Greater Dandenong
  • City of Kingston
  • Frankston City Council
  • Knox City Council
  • Maroondah City Council
  • Monash City Council
  • Mornington Peninsula Shire
  • Whitehorse City Council

 

We will find out if we win on 19th April 2013 at the gala dinner presentation evening at the Frankston Cultural Centre.

 

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. This post is Copyright © 2013 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Melbourne’s South East Business Awards 2011

Melbourne’s South East Business Awards Finalists 2011

 

In Melbourne’s South East Business of the Year Finalists we let you know that we were nominated as finalists for the inaugural Melbourne’s South East Business Awards. Last night we attended the awards and found out the rest of the details.

 

We were selected as finalists for two categories:

  • Small Business Award
  • Business of the Year – Overall Business Excellence Award

On the night the process was explained to us. The Councils each put forward either the businesses that were winners of their own local Business Awards or else selected businesses they believed were worthy of winning in the award categories. The submissions were prepared by the businesses and forwarded by the councils. A independent committee formed for the purpose then went through those submissions and nominated the finalists. So the first interesting thing I learnt is that our nomination as a finalist came from an independent committee and was not automatic. So that is a win in itself. We also didn’t know how many finalists there were until the night. For the categories we were in, there were ten finalists for the Small Business Award and nine finalists for the Business of the Year – Overall Business Excellence Award.

 

There were businesses from 10 councils competing in the awards. Collectively the region of Melbourne’s South East is enormous and on the night some basic facts and figures were presented by Jan Kronberg MLC about the Melbourne’s South East region:

  • It houses 58% of the population of Melbourne
  • It creates 49% of Melbourne’s Gross Regional Product
  • It is the heart of Australian Manufacturing
  • There are over 220,000 businesses
  • Manufacturing is still the main employer
  • Overall, manufacturing as a contributor to GDP has halved since 2000

I already knew that it was the primary manufacturing zone for Australia but I wasn’t aware that half of all the value created in Melbourne happened in our region. That makes it very important that we keep manufacturing going strong. To this end we heard some encouraging rhetoric about how the Victorian Government was committed to that outcome. One point made was that Victoria is the only State Government with a Manufacturing Minister and Richard Dalla-Riva MLC is responsible for that. For all our sakes I am hoping that we are going to see some Big “L” Leadership in this area. You don’t see countries like Japan or Germany allowing their industries to go unsupported and while I do agree that there are some things we shouldn’t try and compete in here, there are a lot of products that Australia is ideally placed to produce and export.

City Of Casey

City Of Casey

Businesses based in the City of Casey had the largest number of finalists so that is also an excellent affirmation of how proactive and effective the team at the Casey Economic Development Department has been in support and encouraging local businesses. We have certainly benefited from their help. Our congratulations also go out to the other City of Casey businesses that were selected as finalists:

Overall there were 53 finalists nominated and we received two of those nominations. The Engineer in me couldn’t help but notice that 53 / 220,000 = 0.024% and since we had two nominations we are in the top 0.012% of businesses in Melbourne’s South East. But then we were selected as one of the top nine businesses overall and so 9 / 220,000 = 0.004%! Given how many excellent businesses there are in the Melbourne’s South East region we feel very encouraged to be recognised at this level.

 

The councils involved in the Melbourne’s South East (MSE) region are:

  • Cardinia Shire Council
  • City of Casey
  • City of Greater Dandenong
  • City of Kingston
  • Frankston City Council
  • Knox City Council
  • Monash City Council
  • Maroondah City Council
  • Mornington Peninsula Shire
  • Whitehorse City Council

We also appreciate the support we receive from the Berwick Village Chamber of Commerce.

 

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. For more information go to his LinkedIn profile at Ray Keefe. This post is Copyright © 2011 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Melbournes South East Business of the Year Finalists

It is only a month into 2011 Calendar Year and we are very excited to announce that Successful Endeavours are finalists for Melbourne’s South East Business Of The Year. We are also finalists for Small Business Of The Year.

 

The entry into this award came as a result of our being Casey Business of the Year for 2010 and award winning businesses from the 11 member councils of Melbourne’s South East were all in the running to be finalists. The councils participating in this strategic development initiative are:

 

  • Cardinia Shire Council
  • City of Casey
  • City of Greater Dandenong
  • City of Kingston
  • Frankston City Council
  • Knox City Council
  • Maroondah City Council
  • Monash City Council
  • Mornington Peninsula Shire
  • Whitehorse City Council

We will find out if we win on 25th February at the gala dinner presentation evening at the Karralyka Centre.

 

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. For more information go to his LinkedIn profile at Ray Keefe. This post is Copyright © 2011 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.