One step ahead It's the market that decides whether an innovation is an innovation. And it is Sto's close ties with the market and its customers that have made it the industry's innovation leader. An involvement in the practicalities of ongoing planning and building operations is essential to enable us to verify whether wishes and objectives are met and problems are solved in an adequately effective manner. Similarly, an ongoing dialogue with our customers is crucial to our understanding why different people involved in the building process see and use the same product in a different way. It is true that this is a time-consuming method of assessing the needs of the market and our customers. But the results which we achieve in developing new products or modifying existing product systems pay off. At Sto, innovation takes place in the area of research and development, rather than being contrived in the marketing department.