DRS is finalist in the "Top 100"
Service Company clears the first hurdle on the way to winning the presti-gious SME award
Frankfurt /Main March 16th, 2009 - The first obstacle has been overcome: DRS has qualified again for the finals of the nationwide business award "TOP 100 - The 100 most innovative small and medium-sized companies". For the seventeenth year in a row, the contest judges the innovative management of German SMEs and awards the "Top 100" quality seal to the best of them. The company taking first place earns the title "Innovator of the Year". On 26 June 2009, project advisor Lothar Späth will an-nounce the 100 top innovators.
However, company management cannot relax after this initial success: It must now dem-onstrate that DRS deserves to be among the 100 most innovative and ambitious small and medium-sized businesses. To do this, DRS must convince the project's administra-tors under Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration of the company's innovative management excellence in a detailed ques-tionnaire.DRS has already persuaded the innovation experts once with the company's performance figures and innovative services. As one of the leading suppliers of virtual data rooms in the real estate, M&A, NPL and private equity industry, DRS has supported a multitude of transactions with a volume of up to EUR 6 billion. Founded in 2001 DRS is based in Germany with offices in Benelux, Italy, U.S. and Switzerland and partners in France, Spain and Portugal. In addition to virtual data rooms and an integrated Q&A management platform, which is adapted to the requirements of companies participating in the process, DRS also offers physical data rooms and data sourcing. Should DRS make the "Top 100", it will be in excellent company: last year, 49 percent of the top innovators among small and medium-sized businesses were the market leaders in their industries, and 17 percent were number 1 in the world. A comparative study showed that the 2007 winners achieve much higher turnover with innovations, and save much more on costs with the innovative streamlining of business processes, than does a com-parable group of companies that did not participate in the project. The purpose of the "Top 100" project is to provide independent academic recognition of the innovative power of companies. This encourages highly innovative enterprises to demonstrate their excellence. In two phases, a team from the Vienna University of Eco-nomics and Business Administration examines the performance of the participants in the five main categories of "Innovative Success", "Innovative Environment", "Innovative Processes and Organization", "Promotion of Innovation by Top Management", and "Inno-vation Marketing". The 2009 winners will receive more than just recognition. In addition, the network provides all "Top 100" companies with valuable contacts and opportunities for high-level cooperation. Using individual benchmarking reports, DRS will be able to further expand and streamline innovation. The finalists will already receive a compact profile of their strengths and weaknesses to facilitate a meaningful initial evaluation of the company's commitment to innovation.
Mentor, partners and coordinationThe project's patron is Lothar Späth. Partners in the project are: Bayern Innovative So-ciety for Innovation and Knowledge Transfer mbH, 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 newspaper. The project is coordinated by Professor Dr. 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".Photographs of the project will be available in the Press section of http://www.top100.de/.
Contact to the Media
Meike Mohr
Marketing Manager
Data Room Services GmbH & Co. KG
Eschersheimer Landstr. 6
60322 Frankfurt, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 69 478640 - 280
Mobil: +49 (0) 178 255 2071
Fax: +49 (0) 69 478640 - 1
meike.mohr@dataroomservices.com
www.dataroomservices.com