Outstanding inventive talent at Apostore

Apostore GmbH from Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia is awarded the Top 100 seal of approval and congratulated by the project's mentor, Lothar Späth.

Gelsenkirchen – Only creative companies with vision and a feeling for new ideas make it into the ranks of the top one hundred most innovative SMEs. Apostore was among them in 2011, and was presented with the Top 100 award by Lothar Späth in the Baltic resort of Warnemünde.

Its core business is the development, construction, installation and maintenance of automatic picking and packing systems. Originally, the company mainly supplied industrial companies and wholesalers but now it focuses on systems for pharmacies. The company, which is run by directors Dr. Jürgen Geßner and Dr. Frank Jung, calls itself an 'engineering-driven development company' because 60 per cent of its staff work on application and development. One of its key competitive advantages is that Apostore specialises in both engineering and software programming. Its latest developments enable automatic picking and packing robots to be switched to an energy-saving standby mode or even to clean themselves. These functions are unique in the market.

Although the company now holds more than 30 patents and copyrights, it never develops new products for their own sake. Each innovator, including senior managers, has direct customer contact. "Otherwise, you quickly bypass the needs of the market", said Dr Geßner.

The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration scrutinised the innovative capabilities several hundred small and medium-sized German firms over a period of several months. The 100 best companies – Apostore among them – bear the Top 100 seal of approval. "Creative ideas and fresh thinking are more than a means of increasing revenue for us; we are passionate about our business, and we want to make a difference. We are proud to have been awarded this prize and it proves that working as a team pays off," said Dr Geßner.

The 100 SMEs who were awarded the seal of approval in 2011 generated total revenue of €11.2 billion last year. In 2010 alone, 769 German and 1,865 international patents were registered. Forty-eight of the one hundred companies are top in their respective sector in Germany, and 19 are actually global market leaders. In the past three years, 88 of the 100 award-winning firms grew faster than the average for their respective sector – by an average of around 16 per cent.

Mentor
The project's mentor is Lothar Späth.

Project management
The 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, innovations management and marketing. He is one of the world's leading experts in user innovation.

Organiser: compamedia GmbH – mentor of the best SMEs

compamedia GmbH organises benchmarking projects for small and medium-sized German firms. By running its TOP 100, TOP JOB, TOP CONSULTANT and ETHICS IN BUSINESS nationwide benchmarking competitions, it assists and awards prizes to companies that achieve outstanding results in the fields of innovation, human resource management, consulting and values management.
 
Partners
Partners in the project are: the German Association for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW), the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, the German Centre for Productivity and Innovation (RKW), SchmidtColleg GmbH & Co. KG, VDE - the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies and Weissman & Cie consultancy firm. Its media partner is the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.