Awarded: MECOTEC GmbH is one of the TOP 100 most innovative companies in Germany

MECOTEC GmbH from Bitterfeld-Wolfen has convinced the jury with its innovative business strategy and performance and therefore receives the TOP 100 seal 2023. This award is only given to particularly innovative medium-sized companies.

“Generating cold with temperatures below minus 60 degrees on an electrical basis is the DNA of our company, on which we have evolved over the past 20 years. We regard ourselves as technological drivers of two megatrends: New Health and ultra-low refrigeration solutions. In medicine, New Health describes the change from regenerative to preventive medicine based on real-time monitoring of data. Ultra-low refrigeration solutions are finding increasing application in the storage of sensitive materials such as mRNA vaccines. In both fields, we use our many years of expertise to the maximum benefit of our customers. We are therefore very pleased that this effort is being recognized. At the same time, the award with the TOP 100 seal is an incentive for us to further advance our research in this area - especially in the area of sustainable applications,” says the founder and CEO of the company, Enrico Klauer, who has retired from the operative business to devote more than 80 percent of his time to the further development on sustainable New Health ideas.

The Minister for Economic Affairs, Tourism, Agriculture and Forestry of the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt, Sven Schulze: "I congratulate MECOTEC on this award. With its high-tech products, the company has already made a name for itself in its industry over a long period of time. MECOTEC sets global standards in its segment and, with its innovative strength, represents the further emerging economic location of Saxony-Anhalt. We will continue to accompany our domestic companies on their growth path and support them to the best of our ability.”

The TOP 100 competition is based on a scientific selection process. On behalf of compamedia, the organizer of this competition, the innovation researcher Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke from the Vienna University of Economics and his team selected MECOTEC GmbH based on more than 100 criteria from five categories: top management promoting innovation, innovation climate, innovative processes and organization, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success. It is particularly important whether the innovations of a company are just a random product of chance or if they are planned systematically and thus innovations can be repeated in the future.

"After being awarded with the Vorsprung business prize last year and thus already counting to the six most innovative companies in East Germany, the entire team at MECOTEC is particularly proud that we receive this award for the company as one of Germany´s Top 100 innovators,” says Dr. Friedrich Rheinheimer, Managing Director of MECOTEC GmbH. "Such an award can only be won as a team that really lives agile structures and in which every employee is part of the innovation process."

To ensure that all applicants have the same chances, the seal is awarded in the following categories by number of employees: up to 50, 51 to 200 and more than 200 employees. In the anniversary year of TOP 100 - the current round is already the 30th edition of the innovation competition - the interest was particularly high: out of 550 medium-sized companies that applied, 300 of them were successful and now bear the TOP 100 seal. A maximum of 100 companies per category can be awarded.

"The TOP 100 award is about the question of how important the innovation goal is for the company," says Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke, scientific director of the competition. “Do routines and habits dominate or is the company able to question the existing, to think creatively and anew and to successfully assert itself on the market? We analyze this ability based on more than 100 test criteria,” he explains.

This year, on June 23rd, all top innovators of the 2023 class will come together in Augsburg for the award ceremony at the 8th German SME Summit where the science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar, who accompanies the innovation competition as mentor, will personally congratulate them on their success in the TOP 100.

TOP 100: The competition

Since 1993, compamedia has been awarding the TOP 100 seal for special innovative strength and above-average innovative success to medium-sized companies. The scientific management has been in the hands of Prof. Dr. Nicholas Franke. Franke is the founder and director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. With 26 research awards and over 200 publications, he is one of the leading innovation researchers internationally. Project partners are the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research and the BVMW association of medium-sized companies in Germany.

Further information on the test criteria can be found at www.top100.de/pruefinstrumente