For 12 years the newspaper Verslo Žinios (Business News) has held the contest of the fastest-growing enterprise “Gazelė” (Gazelle), which has already managed to earn recognition among business society. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) participate in this contest. SMEs are the business of almost the entire Lithuania – such companies account for 99% of all companies of the country, thus SMEs can be boldly stated to be the ones laying economic foundation of Lithuania and acting as its backbone. Competition and growth of the country’s market economy is largely due to the development of this business. Not only do SMEs generate the major share of GDP, but also they employ the most people.
Even though the essential criterion determining the winner is the biggest jump in turnover, additional conditions have also been set. The contest of 2015 was open to companies under any ownership, which started operating no later than on 1 January 2011 and their turnover that year was EUR 0.29 – 40 million. In the previous comparative year, namely, year 2014, a company meeting contest criteria had to be profitable; turnover of “Gazelles” increased by at least 20% compared to 2011 and 2014.
Furthermore, transparency and publicity are just as important as the growth criterion: the company has to orderly pay taxes provided for by laws and follow the principles of best business practice in its daily operations. Thus winners were inspected with great attention, and the assessment was conducted in assistance of the contest partner the State Tax Inspectorate (STI).
UAB Elsis PRO ranked very high in the published “Gazelle 2015” list. If the company ranked 176th in the total ranking of Gazelles (among more than 4000 participants), it was in a very high 5th place among companies operating in information and communication technology (ICT) sector. The Company can be said to have grown more than 3 times in four years (during the period from 2011 to 2014): its revenues increased by almost 295% and totalled EUR 3.2 million, number of its employees almost tripled and was over 70. This was determined by successful programming projects implemented in recent years in Lithuania and abroad.
A complete “Gazelle 2015” list is available online at: http://vz.lt/smulkusis-verslas/gazele2015/technologijos
