Bayerns Best 50
30.07.2015
Three eastern Bavarian companies among “Bayerns Best 50”
published on 30 July 2015 in the Deggendorfer Zeitung - by Alexander Kain
Three companies from eastern and south-eastern Bavaria are among the 50 fastest-growing owner-managed medium-sized companies of 2015 in Bavaria: Dichtungstechnik Wallstabe und Schneider GmbH und Co. KG from Niederwinkling (district of Straubing-Bogen), R. Scheuchl GmbH from Ortenburg (district of Passau) and Elektro Kreuzpointner KG from Burghausen (district of Altötting). Yesterday the top growth companies were honoured with the “Bayerns Best 50” award at a ceremony in the Kaisersaal of the Munich Residenz.
Formally, it is a certificate and a Bavarian porcelain lion with a diamond shield that the company leaders were allowed to receive from the hands of Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs Ilse Aigner (CSU). In fact, the award raises the companies into the top league of medium-sized businesses: honoured are the most dynamic companies in the Free State, businesses that have increased sales and staff numbers above average in recent years - “the best of the best, the pinnacle of our SMEs,” said Aigner.
The “Bayerns Best 50” prize has existed for 14 years, and the award winners come from all Bavarian administrative districts. The winners are determined by an auditing company as an independent juror according to the criteria of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The result, Aigner believes, is impressive: “We are here right at court - our Minister-President is enthroned right next door,” Aigner ventured a small witticism at the award ceremony in the Residenz, “and I know he views it with extraordinary pleasure that I am honouring you today. Because you have earned it. Bayerns Best 50 - that should be tantamount to a knighthood for your companies.”
Bavaria, Aigner found, is doing outstandingly well. The highest economic growth in Germany, ten percentage points since the crisis year of 2008, the lowest unemployment in Germany, and in 2015 even the previous year’s 3.8 percent are to be undercut, and above all a leading position in innovation: “Every third new patent comes from the Free State,” said Aigner. These “key figures of success”, however, “did not fall from the sky”, but were “the direct result of hard work and great willingness to perform”. The backbone of the white-and-blue success are the 600,000 SMEs, where more than three quarters of employees subject to social insurance contributions and 80 percent of apprentices work.
The honoured companies had “done pioneering work”, Aigner found, and: “Others should follow in your footsteps. So that Bavaria continues to stand so brilliantly.” Nevertheless, Aigner conceded, politics too must do its homework - and that is exactly what is happening: “I have a toolbox that we reach for in order to give the medium-sized businesses a vigorous push.”
The Minister of Economic Affairs described digitalisation as a “particular challenge”. “Every company in Bavaria needs a digital strategy,” Aigner warned, “because there is no alternative to digitalisation. It is already in full swing. And anyone who closes their eyes here and buries their head in the sand will be run over.”
