Ranga Yogeshwar Congratulates: Alpha-Omega Technology Is a TOP 100 Innovator for the Second Time

Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH & Co. KG has once again been awarded the TOP 100 seal 2023. The IoT company convinced the jury with a productive innovation environment, a scalable online shop, forward-looking projects and an agile management approach.     

Überlingen/Augsburg: Award ceremony of the TOP 100 anniversary round. On Friday, 23 June, Ranga Yogeshwar congratulated innovative medium-sized companies on their success at TOP 100 at the German Mittelstand Summit in Augsburg, among them managing director Jan Bose for the company Alpha-Omega Technology,  which specialises in projects , consulting  and products around the Internet of Things (IoT). The science journalist accompanies the innovation competition as a mentor. This year the company comparison was held for the 30th time.

In the anniversary round, 550 companies applied for the award, more than ever before. 300 companies prevailed (a maximum of 100 per size category) and received the TOP 100 seal 2023 at the beginning of the year. At the German Mittelstand Summit at the Kongress am Park in Augsburg, Ranga Yogeshwar personally congratulated the top innovators on this success. “The old philosophy of ‘eyes shut and push through’ no longer helps in the face of today's many challenges. What is needed is a completely different, new way of thinking: eyes open and the courage to change! The TOP 100 are ideally placed for this. They are small and agile, can decide directly and react quickly,” he said at the ceremony. Especially in view of challenges such as climate change and resource scarcity, their innovations benefit society as a whole. Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke, scientific director of TOP 100, adds: “Investments in innovation secure tomorrow's economic success. The top innovators have understood this. They are systematically geared towards shaping the new.”

Productive innovation environment

Alpha-Omega Technology sells hardware for building IoT environments through its own online shops iot-shop.de and helium-shop.eu , opened a year ago. It contributes to product developments such as the optical reader KLAX , supports innovative projects, establishes IoT networks for municipalities and companies together with partners, and advises on implementation. CEO Jan Bose explains: "Innovation management is an integral part of our company. It provides freedom for employees' ideas while constantly optimizing processes and focusing on scalable processes. Thus, it results in a productive innovation environment from which my company and my team benefit equally."

Scaling potential

The online shop iot-shop.de was technically designed in such a way that further scaling is possible. By introducing a fully integrated ERP system in 2020, the team was able to implement customer-specific stores on the same technical basis in short implementation times. "As a result, various closed stores have now been established under the main brand, to which only the desired key accounts have access. In addition, we were able, for example, to expand our German-language B2B store to a B2C store as soon as the demand was there. Our store for Helium hardware www.helium-shop.eu was implemented within a few weeks," reports Jan Bose. This was only possible because the IT infrastructure was designed for scaling from the very beginning. At Alpha-Omega Technologie, all processes are built with scalability in mind. No process is set in stone and can adapt to new circumstances in the future. The skills of the team members are also continuously built up and expanded.

Flagship project: “SMARTinfeld”

With the know-how of his team, his own many years of experience in the use of IoT hardware and his network in the business world, Jan Bose supports, among other things, forward-looking initiatives such as the Smart Village model site SMARTinfeld . "In this project, we are implementing use cases for the areas of smart city, smart village, smart building and smart environment under realistic conditions. On the one hand, this strengthens the region as a location, and on the other hand, it promotes the recruitment of regional employees," explains Jan Bose, who was entrusted with the project management by the municipality. As a first step on the way to becoming a smart city, the municipality converted all of its street lighting to smart LED lights in 2017 and 2018. Since then, other applications have been added, such as an IoT weather station and monitoring of the temperature of the road surface or the water quality.

The team: decentralised, digitally connected and agile

Its employees are distributed decentrally at various locations in Germany. "We are a virtual team. Our IT and corporate organization were designed from the outset to ensure that it doesn't matter where our employees work. With digital tools for location-independent collaboration, we can respond quickly and flexibly to new requirements," explains Jan Bose. "We also don't lack innovation, rather the time to implement all ideas and improvements. This is the kind of corporate culture that I, as managing director, consciously promote from the very beginning." The team continuously implements ideas and innovations within the project management methodology SCRUM.

Innovative strength of the TOP 100 companies

The innovative strength of the 300 TOP 100 companies is evident in several key figures. Between 2019 and 2021 they were granted 887 national and 2,717 international patents. The top innovators also generate around 41 percent of their turnover with innovations, i.e. with market novelties and innovative improvements. The fact that 243 of the 300 top innovators have deliberately changed their business model in the past three years shows a high level of adaptability to changing conditions. This year's TOP 100 companies include 107 national and 43 world market leaders. 69 percent of the award-winning SMEs are family-run businesses.

TOP 100: the competition

Since 1993, compamedia has awarded the TOP 100 seal to medium-sized companies for outstanding innovative strength and above-average innovation success. Since 2002 the scientific direction has been in the hands of Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke. Franke is founder and head 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. The mentor of TOP 100 is science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar. Project partners are the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft for the promotion of applied research and the SME association BVMW. The magazines manager magazin and impulse accompany the company comparison as media partners, ZEIT für Unternehmer is a cooperation partner. More information and registration at www.top100.de.