MEED has has rebranded its prestigious awards programme recognising outstanding small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). Launched just two years ago, the ‘SMEinfo Awards’ has quickly gained prominence in the SME community given its stringent criteria for evaluating the UAE’s most successful SMEs, as well as its premiere entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Opening for entries in March 2014, the event has now been rebranded under a new name, “MEED SME Awards’, reflecting MEED’s exclusive role in running the event. “The awards not only honour innovations, business leaders and entrepreneurs, but also shine a spotlight on the collective efforts of this dynamic sector, highlighting success stories as well as key challenges confronting the sector, such as access to finance,” says Becky Crayman, head of awards, MEED.

According to Crayman, the rebranding initiative will help strengthen the awards programme through its direct alignment with the MEED business information portfolio, which has been providing unrivalled business intelligence in the Middle East for the past 55 years.  “MEED has been working closely with leading partners in the UAE SME ecosystem, Dubai SME, Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, Gulf Capital, MasterCard, RSA Insurance, Regus, Grant Thornton and DHL.”

“Drawing on MEED’s expertise in providing industry analysis, we hope to become a key resource for the SME sector, dissecting challenges and opportunities backed by expert analysis and research,” says Richard Thompson, editorial director, MEED.

Aside from supporting SMEs in the UAE, MEED is also focusing on this growing business sector in Oman, through launching an SME Forum at its Oman Project Forum. “The SME sector is alive and well not just in the UAE, but also in other countries in the region, owing to strong domestic push to diversify local economies and generate more employment opportunities for GCC nationals,” ends Crayman.