BrazilHuman capital consultancy HRnetGroup wins Singapore Business Award
The 33rd annual Singapore Business Award have this week celebrated corporate leaders at the top of their respective fields. One of the four awards, the Enterprise Award for 2018, went to Singapore-listed HR consultancy firm HRnetGroup.
HRnetGroup was established in 1992 and has since grown to employ over a thousand full-time consultants in ten cities around Asia. The firm’s regional offices are based in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, Bangkok, Beijing, Seoul and Guangzhou with their headquarters located in Singapore, where they have a 22% market share.
The HR consulting firm boasts over a hundred Fortune 500 companies on its client list and has over 2,000 clients globally. With 11 different brands, and 22 business units across the continent, HRnetGroup has an annual revenue of SGD$391.9 million. Singapore remains the firm’s number one revenue earner with 58% of the its earnings coming directly from the city state.
The daughter of HRnetGroup founder, Peter Sim received the award on Wednesday evening at a gala dinner. Executive Director and Chief Legal Council, Adeline Sim joined the company in 2009 as a member of the General Council and has since taken charge. The Sim family own 74.4% of the HRnetGroup after buying up shares when the firm went public last year. Adeline Sim said previously that, “every company needs human capital, and almost everyone needs a job. When you look at how the Asian work force is larger than that in the US and Europe, you know that investing in an Asian people business is an easy decision.” 
Recently, the firm has also invested SGD$500,000 in its first tech venture, acquiring a stake in Glints Intern, an online talent recruitment company which has developed an organisational development platform for the digital age. Sim said of the purchase; "Currently, while we utilise technology heavily, we don't actually derive any revenue from technology. So Glints was the first step into the HR (human resources) tech space. The idea is to use technology to churn out suitable candidates before getting recruiters to do the final one per cent of the work.”
The Singapore Business Awards are held every year and are an accumulation of four singular awards; the business award, outstanding Chief Executive of the Year, Outstanding Overseas Executive of the Year and the Enterprise Award - decided by a panel of judges from within the business sector itself as well as from official agencies and academia. The objectives of the awards are to acknowledge the contributions made by companies to Singapore’s development, and to encourage and recognise entrepreneurship.
Singapore’s president Halimah Yacob was present at the award ceremony and congratulated the winners by saying that they “have exemplified the spirit of entrepreneurship, resilience and visionary drive”. She also touched on the current trend of technological disruption which all businesses are facing today, regardless of which sector that they are in; "To support businesses in coping and capitalising on these fundamental shifts, the government will continue to invest for the longer term and foster conditions for growth and transformation of our businesses."
