Rewarding innovation: Strama Group comes out a winner in the Top 100 innovation competition 2021
Award winning innovative power: The Strama Group has been awarded the Top 100 seal of approval 2021. For 28 years now this honor is bestowed onto medium-sized enterprises with an especially innovative approach. In a scientific selection procedure Strama-MPS first had to prove its innovative power.
On behalf of compamedia, the organizer of the TOP 100 innovation competition, innovation researcher Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke and his team investigated the innovative power of Strama-MPS.The researchers based their results on around 120 test criteria from five categories:
- Innovation-friendly senior management
- Climate of innovation
- Innovative processes/organization
- Outward looking/Open innovation and
- Successful innovations
At the core of the investigation stands the question of whether innovations are the result of a planned approach or a product of chance, i.e. whether an innovative performance is repeatable. And whether and how the corresponding solutions establish themselves on the market (additional information on the test criteria can be found under www.top100.de/pruefkriterien). Due to the current situation, this round also featured a special section examining the corporate response to the Corona crisis. Strama-MPS is now among the top innovators for the second time after 2015.
Strama-MPS’s rapid response to the Corona lockdown implemented without any significant loss of efficiency and the the establishment of a mask production division within a few weeks were particularly convincing for the jurors in the "Top 100" innovation competition. The company has always reacted most flexibly to changing framework conditions (market, competition, environment). In recent years, the top innovator has increasingly focused on end-to-end corporate digitization. In addition, a high percentage of sales was achieved in the emerging markets of e-mobility and sensor technology within just a few years. As specialist for non-standard machine construction, Strama-MPS relies on an interdisciplinary approach. "We need employees who are creative and, above all, highly interested in what we do – we need the ones who are able to quickly immerse themselves in new requirements," explains Managing Director Herbert Wittl. “It is vital that mechanical engineers as well as hardware and software planners tackle an issue together and support each other wherever and whenever possible; only then can they deliver successful innovations after only a short time," says Wittl, thanking the employees for their commitment: "We rely heavily on the inventiveness of all our employees. They deserve my thanks for achieving the 'Top 100' award."
Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke, the scientific director of TOP 100, is impressed by the award-winning medium-sized companies. “The TOP 100 companies have consistently focused on being as innovative as possible," he notes.
On 26 November 2021, there is again cause for celebration: on that day all award winners of the current TOP 100 year will come together to receive congratulations from Ranga Yogeshwar at the 7th German SME Summit in Ludwigsburg. The science journalist has accompanied the innovation competition in his capacity of mentor for ten years now.
TOP 100: the competition
compamedia has been awarding the TOP 100 seal of approval for special innovative power and above-average innovation success to medium-sized companies since 1993. Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke has headed the scientific management since 2002. Franke is founder and director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. With his 25 research awards and over 200 publications, he is one of the leading innovation researchers all over the world. The science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar is mentoring the Top 100. The Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research and the BVMW association of small and medium-sized enterprises support the competitors as project partners. The magazines “manager magazin” and “impulse” both accompany the process of comparing the enterprises in their capacity of media partners.