«Caus a terra molt avall, creus que no te’n sortiràs, però amb els mesos t’adones que tornes a començar».
More than one attendee at the 39th Pimec Awards went home yesterday with this line stuck in their head. Not only because it is one of the verses from Llença’t, the song with which Lax’n’Busto brought the gala to a close, but also because, in a way, it sums up one of the ideas that ran throughout the evening: falling, getting back up and starting again. And, above all, growing.
More than 1,250 people gathered yesterday at the Palau Sant Jordi to celebrate the 39th Pimec Awards, an evening dedicated to recognising companies, entrepreneurs and business projects that, each in their own way, have made perseverance a way of doing business. It was a gala attended by a broad representation of political institutions and the business community, but also marked by a clear call from the business association: barriers preventing companies from growing must be removed.
Pimec president Antoni Cañete placed this issue at the heart of his speech. He argued that business scale is one of the keys to improving productivity, wages and competitiveness. Spain and Germany have an almost identical share of SMEs — 99.8% and 99.7% of their respective business sectors — but the picture changes when their size is taken into account: 94% of Spanish SMEs are micro-enterprises, compared with approximately 82% in Germany.
The difference is also visible in productivity. While Spanish micro-enterprises generate about 35,000 euros of added value per employee, German ones reach 60,000 euros, according to data cited by Cañete. Growing, therefore, is not just a matter of size. It is, he argued, a door to invest more, innovate, incorporate technology, internationalize, better train people, attract talent and, also, pay better wages. "Salaries must grow," said the president of Pimec, adding a big but: "but without cheating at solitaire."
Cañete again called for a Business Growth Law and recovered one of the employers' association's mantras: "It's about legislating small to be able to grow big." A demand that was accompanied by a review of the other obstacles that, according to Pimec, condition the competitiveness of companies: taxation, absenteeism, education, talent and, also, housing.
Housing played, in fact, a prominent role on a night when Pimec called for consensus and legal certainty to expand the offer. The employers' association insisted that it is not only a social issue, but also an economic one: 63% of companies have difficulties covering job positions and access to housing near the workplace has become an obstacle to attracting talent and filling vacancies.
The message also arrived the day after the Council of Ministers approved two new royal decree-laws on housing. Pimec shared the need to protect vulnerable people, facilitate access to housing, and increase affordable supply, but warned that the measures cannot generate legal uncertainty or cause more homes to leave the rental market.
The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, also spoke about housing, placing it among the new inequalities of the city and relating it to the need to raise salaries, too. They improve, he pointed out, when there is "a solid economic fabric that generates quality opportunities." On stage, along with Collboni, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, and the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, also took the floor.
But, beyond the institutional speeches, this was above all the night of the entrepreneurs. And, especially, the night of the award winners. And this was demonstrated by the conversations at table level, with Danae Boronat, who walked the track of the Palau Sant Jordi as a reporter, making a duo with journalist Anna Boadas, who hosted the event from the stage. Roc Gramona, Tatxo Benet, Fabrizio Favara, Elena Font, Rosa Romà and Joan Vahils were some of the brave ones who passed in front of the microphone.
And, on stage, the two most special award winners of the night went up: Francesc Julià, CEO of Kave Home, distinguished with the Pimes Plus Award, and the Barcelona Pastry Guild, which received the Recognition for Business Activism.
"Visionary, firm and generous leadership. Timely management of resources. And always looking long-term, 20 years ahead." This is, according to Julià, one of the keys to achieving the night's leitmotif: growth. He says it from the experience of someone who has grown a company without giving up its family character or its roots. In just over a decade, Kave Home has extended its activity to more than 60 markets and has multiplied its turnover by 150: between 2014 and 2024, the company's turnover went from 1.2 to 181 million euros.
Kave Home has also undergone a generational handover from father to son, with Julià taking over as general manager before the age of 30, and maintains a clear link with the territory that it projects internationally with a phrase that travels with its products: "designed in Girona".
The Barcelona Pastry Guild, on the other hand, brought another much-appreciated aspect of business success: joy. A dozen members of the guild went on stage to receive an award chosen live by the attending public. They did so by claiming the pride of being part of a guild "that makes all our lives happier." And sweeter.
The night brought many other projects to the stage: Halitta Foods received the CaixaBank–Pimec Foundation Award for Second Business Opportunity; Druids Process Technology, the Catalonia International Award for Catalan Business Projection; B i B Grup, the Award for Business Linguistic Quality; Theker Robotics, the Award for High Innovation Barcelona Company; and Pallars Fustes, the Values Award for Corporate Social Commitment. In the most competitive SME categories, the awards went to 2M Engineering, in the micro-company category; Beor, in the small company category, and Krypton Chemical, in the medium company category.
Different stories, different sectors and different sizes, but the same common thread: companies that have learned to grow, to get up after falling, to reopen their doors every morning looking to the future and to embark on the business adventure. In case you didn't already have the song in your head: "Go for it..."
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