In its application for the award as one of the 100 most innovative medium-sized companies in Germany, Wagner Group GmbH was able to convince the scientific jury with its above-average innovative capacity, especially in the category "Innovation-promoting top management".

The Top 100 seal is the only independent, scientific prize for innovation management in Germany and is being presented for the 30th time this year. A jury of scientific experts evaluate innovative strength on the basis of more than a hundred test criteria in the five categories of innovation-promoting top management, innovation climate, innovative processes and organisation, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success. Future viability on the market is also considered an important decision criterion for the award.

Wagner has been developing and implementing holistic fire protection solutions since 1976 and has established itself as an innovative solution and system provider with around 700 employees at 22 locations in 14 countries worldwide. In the field of fire detection and fire prevention, the group of companies is one of the technology leaders with more than 700 patents.

In the assessments of innovation management, however, it is not so much the innovative products and system solutions that count; rather, the focus on innovative processes, open innovation, and innovation promotion and climate are decisive. In the results of the Wagner Group, the area of "Innovation-promoting top management" is particularly eye-catching with the top grade A+ , as is – also with a particularly high rating – the topic of "Innovative processes and organisation".

Dipl.-Ing. Torsten Wagner, Managing Director and shareholder of the GmbH, was visibly pleased after receiving the award: "When developing our current corporate strategy a few years ago, we gave the issue of innovation a high priority and anchored it in our goals by establishing the staff unit "Innovation & Knowledge". We now see that this has already borne numerous fruits, both in terms of our processes and our innovative fire protection solutions. I would like to quote briefly here from the evaluation by the jury: 'The present innovation balance sheet shows that Wagner Group GmbH is a company that takes the topic of innovation seriously. The differences to the "average" medium-sized company are large and remarkable.' This not only pleases me and my colleagues from the management board, but the whole team at Wagner."

"However, there is no reason for us to rest on our laurels. On the contrary: we continue to focus on the task of maintaining our technology and innovation leadership and constantly developing further. We want to play an active role in shaping the rapid changes resulting from increasing digitisation, automation, new technologies, energy efficiency and sustainability. We still see some potential that we would like to exploit for ourselves – but above all for the benefit of our customers and the environment. Thus, we will continue to offer the better solution in fire protection in the long term", Torsten Wagner concluded.