HEICO receives Top 100 award
08 January 2016
At a prestigious Top 100 awards ceremony held in Essen, Germany, HEICO Befestigungstechnik GmbH received an award as one of the most innovative medium-sized companies in Germany.
The Top 100 award is based upon a two stage scientific analysis developed by Prof Dr Nikolaus Franke and his team from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. A company‘s innovation management and success is evaluated by more than 100 parameters in five different categories. The final decision is then made by the academic leadership.
“The secret of our success is that we never shy away from being innovative,” declares Jan Bernd Heimann, general manager at HEICO Befestigungstechnik GmbH. “At peak times more than 30 HEICO employees are responsible for the research and development of new products.” According to Mr Heimann the fast implementation of good ideas is also a key competitive factor. That is why HEICO has put a lot of effort into its innovation management effort, which has now been recognised with this prestigious award.
This year, Dr Franke and his team had to consider an unprecedented number of applications. From an initial 302 companies who entered, 234 made it into the final of this year’s competition with these companies then divided into three equal sized groups. 178 companies were finally awarded with the Top 100 seal (a maximum of 100 companies in each group).
Among the Top 100 award winners were 71 national leaders and even 31 world leaders – with two-thirds of the Top 100 companies being family owned businesses. The Top 100 companies registered 3,405 patents within the last three years with approximately 41% of their revenues being realised by improved products and technology new to the market (the German average is 6%). This success was not just a matter of chance, on average these companies reinvest 10.5% of their revenues in research and development of new products whereas the German average is 1.5%.
In accepting the award Mr Heimann offered his thanks and appreciation to his employees, whose ideas and commitment made winning the Top 100 accolade possible.
