The software development sector has dominated this year’s, European Business Awards, sponsored by RSM International, winning four out of the 13 awards.

The winners, announced last night, were Olea Medical from France – winner of the Award for Innovation; Greece’s Skroutz S.A. – winner of the European Public Champion Award; ARVENTO MOBILE SYSTEMS  from Turkey – winner of the Business of the Year award [<€25m]; and NNG From Hungary – winner of the Growth Strategy of the Year Award.

Jean Stephens, CEO of RSM, comments: “This year there were ten companies represented from the software development sector in the awards shortlist – a great reflection on the thriving software development sector across Europe. Out of thirteen awards, it is an incredible endorsement to the sector to have four winners from across Europe in so many different categories.”

Olea Medical, which develops and sells innovative software for the accurate and rapid diagnosis of life-threatening diseases, won the UKTI Award for Innovation, due to its disciplined approach to development and enhancement of existing technologies. The vision, expertise and technological innovation of Olea Medical has established itself with huge credibility which it aims to expand rapidly to healthcare practitioners worldwide.

Skroutz S.A.is one of the largest multiple search engines for the Greek Internet, creating leading edge e-commerce and high performance web pages. Last night it was named winner of the European Public Champion Award. Employing a workforce of 50+ with record revenues of €2M annually, it has established itself as the leading price comparison engine in Greece, now serving more than 2.5 million unique users on a monthly basis.

The Turkish technology company Arvento Mobile Systems won the Business of the Year Award [<€25m]. Specializing in vehicle tracking technologies, telematics products and M2M solutions, it has over 18,000 clients in 22 different countries across the globe and has experienced a year-on-year revenue growth of 40% and year on year employee growth of 25%. Arvento stood out because of the way it has successfully provided an ever growing range of services via a carefully structured business model in both the private and public sectors across over 20 countries.

The Hungarian company NNG, the leading navigation solution provider for the Automotive, Personal and Wireless navigation markets, won the Growth Strategy of the Year Award. It won the award for producing a simple, adaptable product with a central core technology that offers both environmental and safety benefits to its users. Installed in more than 20 million devices throughout the world, NNG’s green routing option can decrease the amount of CO2 submitted in the air, can optimize traffic times and can even decrease the chance of road accidents.

Supported by RSM, the leading global audit, tax and advisory network, the European Business Awards has engaged with over 17,000 businesses in 31 countries this year, to find ten finalists (‘Ruban d’Honneur’ recipients) in each of its ten Award categories - chosen by a judging panel including political and business leaders. 30 businesses that received the most votes in each country from a two-stage public vote have been named National Public Champions. This year’s public vote generated over 93,000 votes from across Europe.

All of the Ruban d’Honneur recipients and National Public Champions celebrated at a Gala Event held at the Westin Astir Palace Resort, Athens in Greece on 27 May, and ten category winners and one European Public Champion were announced in front of an audience of over 250 business leaders, academics, media and political representatives from across Europe.

The European Business Awards is an independent awards programme designed to recognise and promote excellence, best practice and innovation in the European business community. It connects the best in European business, across borders, business size and sector and provides an active platform to inspire debate and shape future trends in the European business community.

In the 2013/14 competition, the seventh in its history, all EU member markets were represented plus Turkey, Norway and Macedonia and their combined revenue exceeded €1 trillion, generated profits of over €50 billion.

For more information on the European Business Awards, please visit: www.businessawardseurope.com

ENDS