IST Grand Prize far more than just a pat on the back, say 2002 winners
On 2 October, the 20 winners of this year's IST prize will gather in Milan for the 2003 IST event, where they will discover which products will receive the three Grand Prizes on offer. To give them an idea of what will be at stake on the night, CORDIS News spoke to the three Grand Prize winners from 2002, and asked them how winning the award had subsequently affected the fortunes of their company and product. Danish company Oticon scooped top honours at the 2002 event for its advanced digital hearing instrument, Adapto. Peter Skade is the product manager for Adapto, and he told CORDIS News that winning the award could not have come at a better time. 'We won the IST Grand Prize at just the right point in the product's lifecycle, nearly a year after the launch. Not only did it reinforce the choice of Adapto among our health clinic clients, but it gave us an opportunity to promote the product to potential new customers,' said Mr Skade. The Adapto sales team tries not to go into too much technical detail when promoting the product, Mr Skade explained, but having won a high profile award that recognises general technical excellence, potential customers are assured of the product's innovativeness. Furthermore, Oticon's sister companies promoted Adapto's success at the IST event around the world, resulting in priceless coverage in key US trade journals. 'After almost two years the product is doing great. Having also won the prize previously in 1996, we hope in the future to become the first three-time winners of the Grand Prize,' Mr Skade concluded. The second 2002 Grand Prize winner was Decuma from Sweden, for their handwriting recognition software. Again, as CEO Roger Larson explains, the timing of the award was critical: 'The announcement came at an excellent time for us, as we were at a critical stage of negotiations with Sony in Japan and winning the prize certainly helped to clinch the deal.' Thus far, Decuma's primary market has been Asia, and winning such an important European prize was an important boost for their operations in a region that places a high value on recognition through awards. 'Also, being a small European company, we appreciated the credibility that winning such an award lent us in the eyes of large Asian clients,' Mr Larson added. Almost as important to Decuma as winning the title itself was receiving the 200,000 euro that goes with it, which in this case went into product promotion and was 'a great help'. Finally, Mr Larson explained that the Grand Prize continues to help out during business negotiations: 'The award itself has pride of place in our boardroom, and a five minute explanation often helps to get meetings with potential clients off to the right start!' The final 2002 Grand Prize winner was German company MRC Systems, which was recognised for their radiotherapy treatment software. At the time of the IST 2002 event, MRC were already in acquisition talks with technology giant Siemens. 'Winning the award did a lot to convince the top management at Siemens that MRC was a good acquisition,' explained former MRC director, Dr Jörg Stein, now Director of Siemens oncology care systems. 'Afterwards, we promoted the prize win as much as we could, especially in the US where they have a real prize culture. American customers were particularly impressed by the 200,000 euro cash prize,' Dr Stein told CORDIS News. When asked how the money was spent, Dr Stein said that 95 per cent went into promotional activities, and the rest was spent on celebrations. And if conclusive proof were needed that winning a Grand Prize directly leads to new business opportunities, Dr Stein explained that the first sale made as a direct result of the prize came when he met an interested party at the awards ceremony in Copenhagen itself.
Kraje
Germany, Denmark, Sweden