ENGLISH I DEUTSCH

One of the key success factors of companies is innovation in form of continuous improvements and breakthroughs at larger intervals in upturns as well as in downturns, based on a sound financial model. Innovations of companies, who are successful on a long-term basis, are embedded into a vision, which they follow up consistently over generations through all economical situations. A future-oriented, evolutionary strategy, which is based on their individual strengths and the specific needs of their target group contributes to their innovative success and helps them to come through recessions and crisis.



Innovation is not so much a question of financial budget than of creativity and company culture. This is an excellent prerequisite for companies to come through the actual crisis, if they are financially sound in general.

In downturns the wheat is separated from the chaff. Speedy profits at all costs are not the recipe for persistence, as the banks demonstrated during the previous months. Also in real economy persistent companies take care of conservative financing models in upturns as well as in downturns, what backs them up to follow up their plans in all situations. Many companies do not start expensive innovations right now. However, clever players do not stop innovations at all. We were told this lesson e.g. by Toyota¹ , who came out of downturns less unscathed than their competitors. One of Toyota's success factors is continuous improvement in all situations. So it might be a good advice to concentrate on processes during the crisis.

There are medium-sized companies who stated that they did not find the time to think about innovation during the previous years because they were so busy to fulfill their orders. They can take a breath now and brainstorm about improvements in the technical areas as well as in their business processes. The advantages of small process innovations are that they increase the lead about competitors immediately with a moderate budget. At the same time such actions lay the basis for growth during the next upturn.



The German author Simon² evaluated hidden champions in German speaking countries. One of his lessons is that hidden champions are innovative, perform continuous improvements permanently and breakthrough innovations more rarely. However, all innovators follow their vision and their philosophy, which are consistent over generations. Liker reports the same for Toyota, Collins³ found similar results for big companies.

Hidden Champions developed a strategy to follow up their vision. They focus on their individual strengths, on what they can do better than their competitors. They use these strengths to solve the most urgent problems of their customers or to help them with their prioritized developments. Mewes⁴ analyzed why some people are successful and others are not. He developed his EKS strategy out of his results, which are in compliance with those of the authors mentioned above. Mewes' strategy teaches us to focus on bottlenecks of our target group as well as on our own bottlenecks. It is one that can be put into practice in an easy way, also from small and medium-sized companies.

During downturns it is especially important to follow up the strategy consistently, to do a good job. On the other hand flexibility is required, flexibility with flextime, workplaces of employees, etc.