- Deutsche Telekom and Der Mittelstand. BVMW e.V. honor digital lighthouse projects
- Independent jury selects digital champions in three categories
- Special award for ESG strategy of hardware specialist Cherry SE
The winners of the "Digital X Award 2023" know all too well how digitalization works in medium-sized companies. This year, their progressive business models were once again honored by Deutsche Telekom together with the German association for small and medium-sized businesses Der Mittelstand, BVMW e.V. The winning companies received this year's awards as part of the Digital X digitalization initiative in Cologne in September.
Patron of the Award Volker Wissing, Federal Minister for Digital and Transport, emphasized on the occasion of the award competition: "Progress through digitalization, the future through innovation: This is what many SMEs are counting on. They are shaping the digital transformation, driving it forward and taking advantage of the opportunities it offers. The Digital X Award shows - and honors - the wealth of ideas and commitment of these SMEs. They are role models who inspire others."
From Future Work to CO2 footprint
The Digital X Award honors digital lighthouse projects in the SME sector. It picks up on the key themes of this year's Digital X in three categories. The digital forerunners show that they have used digital solutions particularly consistently and innovatively, improved their products with the help of digititalization or developed new business models. An independent jury, advised by the scientific partners University of St. Gallen and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, discussed which candidates best fulfill these role models.
“This year, almost 50 percent more companies applied with their innovation projects than last year," said longtime jury member Hagen Rickmann, patron of Digital X 2023 and Director Business Telekom Deutschland. "The award makes it visible that more and more SMEs want to make a difference and are putting it into practice. There is no alternative to digitalization, even in economically difficult times."
"In particular, the entries in the Future of Work category show that the pandemic has changed the economy and society for good. Digitalization simply means more than introducing new software and hardware, but goes hand in hand with a comprehensive transformation of companies, especially of corporate culture," says Michael Woltering, Member of the Board at BVMW.
These are the winners of the Digital X Award
The Digital Champions 2023
Category Future of Work
Augel GmbH: Digital working model for young and old
As a medium-sized, family-run construction company in its third generation, Augel GmbH impressed the jury with its innovative working approaches and new digital technologies and software solutions. The jury was particularly taken with the concept of a flexitime account and lifetime working hours account. This means that employees can freely organize the time and place of their work and use their lifetime working time account for a wide variety of life situations. And that goes down well: Augel has recently been able to hire many younger people. But older people are also taking advantage of the opportunities, in some cases to continue working beyond retirement. Augel's comprehensive range of solutions shows that even as a medium-sized company with around 100 employees in a traditional environment, it is possible to play an active role in shaping the future of work.
Category Connected Business
imes-icore GmbH: Digital ecosystem all the way to the end customer
imes-icore GmbH is one of the world market leaders for digital CAD/CAM production systems in dental medicine. Its portfolio includes milling and grinding machines for dentists, clinics, laboratories and milling centers. To better reach its customers and distributors, the company has built a "digital ecosystem" with the acronym DSM (Dental Smart Market). Machine systems, sales and service processes, and many other functionalities are digitally mapped there. In addition, machine data, including real-time data, can be viewed transparently so that imes-icore can better understand the machine utilization of its customers. The DSM thus links dental technicians and dentists, dealers, service partners and patients with the imes-icore Group and with each other. The most practical aspect of this is that imes-icore is now much closer to the end customer, the patient. The advantages: targeted product sales and service, greater productivity, cost-effectiveness and convenience. Such a digital ecosystem is likely to be interesting for many medium-sized companies.
Category Security
University Hospital Bonn: The future of medicine is secure
Cyber security by design, consistently and without compromise: With the lighthouse project called "Innovative Secure Medical Campus UKB" (ISMC), the University Hospital Bonn (Universitätsklinikum Bonn, UKB) has applied. The goal is to build a holistic secure digitalization solution that will protect extremely sensitive health data. The technologies used, such as 5G, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and surgical robotics, will be professionally secured from the outset. For university workstations and medical equipment, UKB is introducing monitoring technologies that automatically identify security incidents and take appropriate action in response. The hospital is also charting new paths for digital medicine in terms of process optimization and precision medicine - including further training measures for all UKB employees. In this way, UKB aims to prevent cyber-security incidents and at the same time pays tribute to the German act for the future of hospitals KHZG (in German). This provides for the early implementation of digital measures relevant to the future.
Special category Sustainability and Responsibility
Cherry SE: ESG strategy for medium-sized companies
Deutsche Telekom presents its fourth award this year to a company that impressively demonstrates how sustainability measures can be comprehensively defined and implemented being a medium-sized company. Cherry SE, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware, demonstrates a convincing and ambitious strategy for sustainable business in the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) areas. As part of its "Cherry House of ESG", Cherry SE addresses both its corporate responsibility as a medium-sized company and concrete time milestones and plans for implementation. Progress is always clearly documented.
The jury members and initiators of the Digital X Award 2023 (from left to right): Monika Thomasberger (DT), Tim Börjesson (DT), Walter Brenner (University of St. Gallen), Michael Woltering (BVMW), Oliver Grün (BITMi), Barbara Brenner (University of St. Gallen), Hagen Rickmann (DT). © © Deutsche Telekom
Background
The jury included representatives from Deutsche Telekom, the German association for small and medium-sized businesses Der Mittelstand. BVMW e.V., the German Association of IT SMEs (BITMi) and Thorsten Giersch from the trade journal Markt und Mittelstand. Scientific partners from the University of St. Gallen and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne were responsible for the pre-selection. Digital X is Europe's largest cross-industry digitalization initiative. More than 300 national and international partners are involved in the initiative. Further details on the digitization initiative can be found here and at www.telekom.com/digital-x-special.
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