Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) has been awarded the special Baden-Württemberg prize at the IT Innovation Award 2011 organized by Initiative Mittelstand ("SME initiative"). It received the accolade for its software-based service solution Prinect Performance Benchmarking.

With CeBIT drawing to a close in Hannover, several hundred guests from politics, business and the ICT industry gathered to honor the year's best IT innovations for SMEs. The winners saw off competition from around 2,000 nominees. The 100-strong panel of professors, scientists, industry and IT experts, and journalists rated all the submitted products based on their level of innovation and their suitability for SMEs. They placed particular focus on increased efficiency, implementation and maintenance costs, and user-friendliness.

Using anonymous data pools that are updated daily, Prinect Performance Benchmarking enables print shops to compare their performance and efficiency against other print shops around the world that have a similar business model, order spectrum, and machine configurations. Heidelberg unveiled the module at IPEX 2010 in Birmingham.

"Many Heidelberg customers are SMEs, therefore Heidelberg has traditionally been an innovation driver and advisor for this key sector. This year's triumph at Initiative Mittelstand's IT Innovation Award 2011 underlines our commitment to boosting customer competitiveness by delivering innovative services," says a delighted Marcel Kiessling, member of the Heidelberg Management Board responsible for the "Heidelberg Services" division.