traytec awarded as top innovator

Bad Bentheim - For over 20 years, the "Top 100" seal has stood for innovative strength, thirst for knowledge and team spirit. On June 27, Germany's most successful think tanks will once again receive the coveted award. "Top 100" mentor Ranga Yogeshwar will honor the companies at the German SME Summit in Essen. The "Top 100" initiator compamedia expects more than 1,000 guests to attend the event. traytec GmbH from Bad Bentheim is one of the top innovators.

traytec GmbH, which was named a top innovator, is literally a master of its trade. Whether car mirrors, medicines, meat or lipstick: in all cases, the company from Lower Saxony ensures the perfect protection of the goods through the appropriate packaging. The Bad Bentheim company produces "trays" made of various plastics for the automotive, medical, food and cosmetics industries.

How do you package a ham, for example, so that the seller suffers as little cutting loss as possible? You put the raw ham in a square carrier and let it mature in the warehouse. Over time, the ham takes on the carrier shape and can later be portioned at sale without much cutting waste. This is just one of traytec GmbH's ingenious ideas, which they have registered as a patent. The three managing directors do everything they can to ensure that innovations keep coming onto the market. With success: although the company was only founded in 2009, it already has 50 employees today.

For the young company, innovation also means improving internal work processes. For example, the Lower Saxons have developed a system that captures waste heat from their production machines to heat the company building. "An enormous amount of heat is generated during the deep-drawing process. A lot of energy is consumed due to the rapid cooling of the plastics being processed," explains Managing Director Jan H. Pokorny, the technical head of the management team. Thanks to the internal process change, the company can now make further use of the energy that is released.

For Jan H. Pokorny of traytec, success in "Top 100" is something very special: "We see the award of the 'Top 100' seal as a reward for our joint efforts in the company. But being innovative also means not resting on our laurels. That's why we're celebrating today - and tinkering with new ideas again tomorrow."

Making it into the "Top 100" is preceded by a demanding selection process. Innovation researcher Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke and his team from the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business examined the applications of 247 companies. 148 of them received the Top Innovator award in three size categories (maximum 100 companies per size category). The study focuses on innovation management and innovation success.

"The 'Top 100' are outstandingly successful in turning their ideas into market successes. This is the hurdle that many other companies fail to overcome. The top innovators master this challenge with a strong team spirit, efficient processes and often by involving customers and external partners in development at an early stage," says Prof. Franke.

A glance at the figures shows just how good this year's "Top 100" are: 65 national market leaders and as many as 21 global market leaders are included. Together, the top innovators filed nearly 2,100 national and international patents in the past three years. Their innovative strength has brought the companies remarkable success: 82 percent of them grew above their respective industry average from 2011 to 2013 - and by an impressive 22 percentage points on average. They generated 41.6 percent of their sales with market innovations and innovative improvements. By comparison, the average for all medium-sized companies in Germany is just 6.8 percent. 62 percent of the "Top 100" are family businesses.

The mentor

The mentor of "Top 100" is the journalist and TV presenter Ranga Yogeshwar.

Scientific management and cooperation partners
Since 2002, the scientific direction has been in the hands of Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke from the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Franke's research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation management and marketing. The scientist is one of the world's leading experts on user innovation. "Top 100" project partner is the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research. More info at www.top100.de.

compamedia, mentor of the best medium-sized companies
Founded in 1993, compamedia GmbH has 19 employees and organizes the nationwide company comparisons "Top 100", "Top Job" and "Top Consultant" and has launched the values alliance "Ethics in Business". In this way, it accompanies and awards prizes to medium-sized companies that excel in the areas of innovation, human resources management, consulting and corporate social responsibility. compamedia cooperates with renowned universities in all projects.

_{Source: Press release 27.06.2014 compamedia GmbH}