Two global market leaders from Hohenlohe have been awarded with the "Markt und Mittelstand" magazine's media prize in the "Transformation" category: ebm‑papst, the specialist for fans and motors in Mulfingen, and the screw and tool supplier Würth in Künzelsau. Both, as the jury described, are high-performing family businesses that care about the long-term future of their companies and have succeeded in achieving significant change through their own efforts. The awards were presented at the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt in the run-up to the festive "Night of the Brands 2023" gala.

While the entrepreneur Reinhold Würth has succeeded in transforming the small trading company into a global group, ebm‑papst is currently lifting air technology into a new generation with its strategy "Making the future together", concentrating its innovative strength on sustainable and high-growth business areas and making itself independent of the automotive industry.

"In our transformation with sustainable and digital solutions for a better climate, we are focusing on our strategic future fields. Be it in the area of air conditioning for data centers or clean rooms, in the field of renewable energies or within heating technology for heat pumps," emphasized HR Director Dr. Sonja Fleischer, CHRO and member of the Executive Management Board at ebm‑papst.

Recently, turnover has grown at a double-digit rate despite the exit from the automotive industry. The automotive industry was previously an important sector that is now no longer being pursued. According to Fleischer, the company is focusing its resources and innovative strength on important future markets in which megatons of CO2 can be saved together with customers.

The jury was impressed by how consistently and quickly ebm‑papst succeeded in making the change and how the company is preparing itself for a technologically demanding and more interesting future, as stated in the laudation. Digitalization is increasingly determining the company's strategy and direction, it continued. Fans and motors are becoming parts of entire systems with which the company can, for example, control the air conditioning of buildings individually, intelligently and sustainably.

Michael Oelmann, Chief Editor of the magazine "Die Deutsche Wirtschaft", pointed out the importance of medium-sized companies for the German economy. According to him, the 1000 largest alone provide eight million jobs worldwide. Transformers are characterized by the fact that they change and implement their business model on their own and are successful in the market. Being in the top 100 is a prerequisite for becoming transformer of the year.