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Press ReleasesInnovation-friendly Senior Management at CAS Karlsruhe-based software firm is “Top 100” category winner / Lothar Späth presents CAS with innovation award
Karlsruhe (Germany), June 26, 2009. CAS Software AG is the winner of the “Innovation-friendly Senior Management” category in the 17th “Top 100” nationwide corporate benchmarking competition. The judges of this prestigious competition for small and medium-sized German companies were particularly impressed by CAS's holistic approach to the innovation process across the entire value chain and the commitment of the managers in this area. The company was also awarded the “Top 100” seal of approval for its outstanding achievements in the “Successful Innovation”, “Climate of Innovation”, “Innovative Processes and Organisation” and “Innovations Marketing” categories. Lothar Späth, former state premier of Baden-Württemberg, will present CAS's managing director, Martin Hubschneider, with the category winner's prize and the prestigious “Top 100” seal of approval at an official ceremony in Königswinter's “Gästehaus Petersberg” this Friday evening. The company was among the top ten for all the other categories and also made it into the top ten in the overall ranking. This is the fifth time it has been recognised as one of Germany's top 100 innovators. The software firm, which generated sales of €32.5 million in 2008, scored highly for the way in which it brings together perspectives that are strictly separated in other companies. For example, its innovation strategy is derived directly from its corporate strategy, which is especially apparent in the innovation mix and the project portfolio. Conversely, the company's vision and mission are heavily influenced by innovations management. These different perspectives help to shape the company goals, which are clearly formulated by Martin Hubschneider and his fellow senior managers. CAS has also set up its own “Innovation and Business Development” department which employs nine of the company's 300 staff and which concentrates exclusively on the technological, commercial and organisational aspects of innovations management. This holistic approach to the innovation process has led to an allround win-win situation. To qualify for the award, CAS had to undergo a stringent, two-stage process devised by the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. “Our results show that the 100 top innovators generally tackle challenges head on and are thus well equipped to deal with the current economic situation, for example. Innovation is a matter of priority at management level for most of these companies,” commented Professor Nikolaus Franke, head of the research team, on the analysis. In the past three years, these award-winners generated two thirds of their revenue from innovations and innovative improvements, compared with 30 per cent in a sample of similarly-structured German SMEs. In addition, Top 100 firms were able to shave some 12 per cent off their costs through process innovations, compared with a paltry 4 per cent on the part of “average SMEs”. As a result, this year's “Top 100” contains 54 German market leaders, 22 of which are global leaders in their field. Martin Hubschneider is jubilant about the firm's success: “Innovation is one of our top priorities, and one to which we devote a lot of energy and resources. This category win confirms that we are on the right track and provides additional motivation for us to keep moving forward in this direction.” Overall, 319 companies entered the “Top 100” competition this year. All of the 100 top innovators are featured in the book “Top 100 - the 100 most innovative companies in Germany's SME sector” edited by Lothar Späth, and featured on the website www.top100.de. The project is organised by compamedia GmbH, Überlingen, Germany. Companies interested in entering the competition can apply as of now via the website. The deadline for entries is 30 October 2009. Mentor and partnersThe project's patron is Lothar Späth. Partners in the project are: Bayern Innovativ GmbH, the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, the German Centre for Productivity and Innovation (RKW), the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) and the Association of German Engineers (VDI). Its media partner is the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Project managementThe project is coordinated by Dr Nikolaus Franke, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. The focus of his research is on entrepreneurship, innovation management and marketing. He is one of the world's leading experts in user innovation. Organiser: compamedia GmbHcompamedia specialises in organising benchmarking projects and creating
networks for small and medium-sized enterprises. The agency concentrates on
promoting its projects in the media, leaving technical implementation to its
specialist partners. In addition to the Top 100 innovation project, compamedia
coordinates two other prestigious projects that highlight the achievements of
Germany's SME sector: the Top Job employer benchmarking competition under the
mentorship of Wolfgang Clement and Ethics in Business with Ulrich Wickert as
patron. This text is available in digital format from masurat@compamedia.de; photographs of the awards ceremony will be available in the Press section of www.top100.de from Saturday, 27 June. Your contact can provide pictures of the prize-winning company.
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