Top 100 Seal: Wilo once again among the most innovative companies in Germany
Technology specialist exemplary in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic
The Wilo Group has once again made it into the top ranks in the 28th edition of the Top 100 innovation competition. "We are pleased to have received the prestigious Top 100 Seal once again. It confirms our efforts to be the innovation leader in the pump industry," says Oliver Hermes, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of the Wilo Group.
This year, in addition to assessing innovation readiness and strength, the entrepreneurial response to the COVID-19 crisis was also examined. Here too, Wilo performed exceptionally well: "Therefore, this award also belongs to every Wilo employee worldwide. In these challenging times, everyone is working together and has contributed to this excellent recognition," explains Oliver Hermes.
Approximately 120 evaluation criteria from five categories are examined for assessment: innovation-promoting top management, innovation climate, innovative processes and organization, external orientation/open innovation, and innovation success. At its core, it is about whether innovations are the result of planned actions or chance occurrences, that is, the repeatability of innovation performance. "For almost 150 years, the principles of consistency and adaptability have shaped the history of Wilo. Our targeted spirit of invention and our lived responsibility for climate protection always motivate us to develop new future-oriented technologies and solutions," says Oliver Hermes.
Since 1872, Wilo has been providing people around the globe with innovative products and smart system solutions. The latest and most visible sign of this is the recently officially opened headquarters of the company, the Wilopark, featuring a smart, interconnected factory and a state-of-the-art administration building. "The redesign of the Wilo headquarters is not only one of the largest investment projects in our company's history, but also a consistent step towards sustainability and digitalization," says Georg Weber, Chief Technology Officer of the Wilo Group, who sees the Wilopark as a blueprint for the future development of all Wilo locations worldwide. "It is also the largest innovation project since our founding in 1872, for example, with the use of collaborative robots, autonomously operating vehicles, or machines with predictive maintenance." Innovation readiness and strength are the result of a cross-generational development: "Industry-wide technology and innovation leadership is a question of corporate culture and is firmly anchored at Wilo," says Georg Weber. "This is evident not least in numerous product innovations, ongoing pioneering spirit, including in the field of digitalization, or one of the most successful employee-led innovation portals that we maintain at Wilo."
The Top 100 seal will be awarded on November 26th by mentor Ranga Yogeshwar and the scientific director of the competition, Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke.
