Deizisau, february 2022 – In a competition held by the forward-looking business club "The Grow", EHEIM came out on top as the "Most Innovative Company" in Germany. The Grow Award was presented at the Club's Annual Convention on 8 December in the Königssaal of the Bayerischer Hof in Munich.
“The Grow” is an innovative entrepreneurial club that connects medium-sized companies and start-ups in the German-speaking region (DACH). Their mission is to make the members stronger for future challenges through cooperation, and to further advance Europe as a location for innovation. Members are leading personalities from politics, business, and science.
The Grow Awards 2021 were presented in four categories, and the winners were decided using a combination of an online vote and a jury assessment. The categories were: Most Innovative Company; Most Innovative Entrepreneur; Most Innovative Start-up and Most Innovative Association.
In the category "Most Innovative Company", only three companies were on the shortlist. These were: Westwing, the integrated eCommerce platform for Home & Living; Bose, the renowned manufacturer of loudspeakers and other audio products; and EHEIM. In the end, EHEIM prevailed over the other two companies and came out on top. A statement said: “EHEIM has proven that digitalisation does not stop at pet supplies and aquatics”.
In fact, EHEIM has recently promoted further digitalisation in aquatics, with more and more aquarium technology being developed with digital controls. These include several Wi-Fi-capable products that can be configured and monitored wirelessly via smartphone, tablet, or PC. This range of products, the "EHEIM Digital" range, extends from aquarium filters, lighting and heating to automatic feeders and CO2 supply. You can find more information about the individual devices at www.eheim.com.
During an interview with The Grow Awards, EHEIM Managing Director Ibrahim Mefire Kouotou answered the question "What does innovation mean to you?", he said,:
"Innovation means creating something that the customer needs. It means problem solving [...]. Being innovative is exhausting because you must fight against a lot of resistance until the customers have the finished product in their hands [...]. We see that now, as functions that were manual before are changed to digital…”
And when asked, "How did you manage to digitalise EHEIM and the pet industry?", he replied:
"Many were sceptical and asked what you can even change there. With dogs and cats, there are few possibilities such as GPS - collars and automatic flaps or food dispensers etc. But aquatics offers a lot of potential. What many people don't know is that fish are the third most popular pet in the world, and an aquarium needs a pump, filter, light, heater, automatic feeder, fertiliser, and water treatment [...]. With this technology, you will be able to change settings on the go and have lamps that mimic the hours of sunshine in tropical fish territories, filters that signal when they are too dirty, and food dispensers that indicate when they need to be refilled [...]. But if the customer doesn't want all that, they can still control everything manually, so everyone is picked up and not forced to switch ..."'
The Grow Annual Convention in the Königssaal of the Bayerischer Hof in Munich was held under the motto: Laptop and Lederhosen versus Pommes & Champagne. 130 members of the club were present to witness the ceremony and the awarding of prizes, including Professor Dr. Nadine Kammerlander, Head of the Institute for Family Businesses at the WHU Business School, who held the laudatory speech. Also present was Chairmen Bernhard Schindler and Gerold Wolfarth, who presented the awards on behalf of the 245 members of “The Grow”.
The winners in the other categories were Snocks founder Johannes Kliesch in the Most Innovative Entrepreneur category; Klosterkitchen with CEO Mario Fürst in the Most Innovative Start-up category and FC Bayern München in the Most Innovative Club category.