Data Room Services Announced as Top Innovator Again

Frankfurt, June 29, 2009 - The provider of virtual data rooms has yet again been recognized as one of Germany's Top 100 Innovators. For 2009, the award in this prestigious annual corporate benchmarking competition is for Data Room Services' systematic, well thought out and successful innovation management.

Data Room Services GmbH & Co. KG is one of the 100 most innovative small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in Germany. Lothar Späth, former state premier of Baden-Württemberg, presented this prestigious award to Data Room Services at an official ceremony in Königswinter's guest house building on Friday, 26 June 2009.

As patron of the SME project, Lothar Späth recognized Data Room Services' achievements in the categories of "Innovation-friendly Senior Management", "Climate of Innovation", "Innovative Processes and Organization", "Innovations Marketing" and "Successful Innovations". The company belongs to the "Top 100" of German SMEs the second year in a row.

Data Room Services GmbH & Co. KG is a transaction services provider specializing in highly secure, fast and reliable virtual data rooms. Data Room Services has won the award primarily for its particularly innovation-friendly working environment which not only tolerates mistakes but also understands them as necessary parts of progress and development. All employees are heavily involved in innovation processes, spending as much as 15 per cent of their working time on new ideas.

To qualify for the award, the company had to undergo a stringent two-stage process devised by the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. „Our results show that the 100 Top-Innovators come up against powerful challenges and are well prepared for the current financial crisis" says Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke, the scientific director of this analysis. In the past three years the entrants generated 67 per cent of their profits from innovations and innovative improvements - compared with 30 per cent in the sample of similarly structured companies. The consequence: This year's Top 100 include 54 German market leaders and 22 global market leaders. Alexandre Grellier, CEO Data Room Services, is proud of this success: "Our innovative strength has been proven to be amongst the best in Germany`s small and medium-sized companies. This enforces our credibility with our employees, partners and, of course, our customers."

Mentor, Partners and Coordination
The project's patron is Lothar Späth. Partners in the project are: Bayern Innovative association for Innovation and knowledge transfer, Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, the German Centre for Productivity and Innovation (RKW), the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) and the Association of German Engineers (VDI). Its media partner is the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", a German Newspaper.

Scientific Administration
The project is coordinated by Professor Nikolaus Franke of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.

Organiser: compamedia GmbH
compamedia specialises in organising benchmarking projects for medium-sized German firms and in developing networks of such companies. It runs the "Top 100 - the 100 most innovative companies in Germany's SME sector" project, the employers' benchmarking award "Top Job - Germany's 100 best SME employers" and "Ethics in Business - pioneers of ethical conduct". This text is available in digital format from nakoinz@compamedia.deThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ; photographs of the awards ceremony will be available in the Press section of www.top100.de from Saturday, 5 July. Your contact can provide pictures of the prize-winning company.