Innovation in the spotlight
Innovation is an integral part of Pfeifer’s overall strategy. The Innovation Hub founded in Innsbruck in June 2021 is a clear sign for that. With it, Pfeifer intends to further expand innovation in the timber industry in the coming years.
Innovation is an integral part of Pfeifer’s overall strategy. The Innovation Hub founded in Innsbruck in June 2021 is a clear sign for that. With it, Pfeifer intends to further expand innovation in the timber industry in the coming years.
The Innovation Hub sees itself as a new Pfeifer location deliberately set up in a different place away from Pfeifer's day-to-day business in order to promote engagement with innovative topics. Operating at an address it shares with the Tyrolean family-owned company MPreis, both companies drive their innovation activities forward. Its door is wide open for other network partners, start-ups and explicitly all Pfeifer employees. “At the hub, we as Pfeifer want to engage with new technologies, start-ups and trends and in doing so identify potential for Pfeifer and pursue it with determination. We cannot achieve this goal alone. Rather, we want to build bridges and embody innovation together with all employees,” CFO Ewald Franzoi and Innovation Manager Johannes Oberdanner explain the reasons behind the project.
Ewald Franzoi
CFO of the Pfeifer Group
“We want to leverage the huge potential of wood as a raw material and carbon storage medium with courage, innovative strength and entrepreneurial spirit together with all our employees and partners. The Innovation Hub provides the necessary space and is a growth zone for new approaches and ideas.“
Professional trend scouting
Anchored in the organisational chart as a new staff unit serving under the CFO, the topic of innovation takes on an important role in the company, both organisationally and strategically. The Innovation Hub itself is also based on clear processes with a defined mission: As an ear and eye to the world, it identifies trends in the various markets, technologies and customers and evaluates them together with experts from the entire company. Together with a constantly growing network of partners, the most promising projects are then implemented jointly by interdisciplinary teams.
The aim of the hub is to create long-term and sustainable added value for all current and future customers and society. This is achieved by creating new, customer-centric products and services, which in turn ensure profitable business models for long-term economic success. Ewald Franzoi elaborates: “Pfeifer wants innovation to be visible, tangible and consolidated within the company. As the first company in the timber industry operating its own innovation hub, we are establishing a platform for interdisciplinary exchange on the potential of wood as a raw material in the context of the climate crisis.”
