TL;DR

Design of an assessment tool to measure the capability of corporations to partner with start-ups.

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PROJECT SPONSOR - PETER BORCHERS
With expertise in digital matters, Peter Borchers advises CxOs and has supported numerous companies in setting up, operating and reviewing their corporate startup programs. Peter founded and led "hub:raum", the global startup incubator for Deutsche Telekom, and served as CEO of Allianz X, where he built and led the global corporate venture fund and company builder ($500 million budget).
 
ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGE
To keep up with the ever-faster spinning pace of innovation, established companies - regardless of whether they are medium-sized enterprises or large corporations - need to develop themselves further. The need to do so in a targeted and substantial manner. Three core competencies are important to be sustainable and successful in the future:
 

• They need to adapt their established product portfolio and underlying business models to the new customer needs.

• They must acquire the ability not only to recognize future-oriented business areas but also to develop them consistently and in timely fashion.

• ​They need to trim their organization for agility and speed to remain adaptable in the long term. Startups - at least the successful ones - are traditionally good in all these disciplines.

​Thus, cooperating with them can become part of the solution for established companies. Indeed, over the last decade, structured collaboration with startups has increasingly been used by some of the most innovative companies as a means to generate further strategic competitive advantage. 

There are many different forms of collaboration and successful collaboration can only succeed if the necessary interfaces are built in such a way that they can efficiently provide the complex translation service between the different worlds and cultures of established companies and agile startups.

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BUILDING AN ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR CORPORATIONS

In a first-of-its-kind quantitative study of corporate-startup partnering, Peter Borchers recently published the impact of Venture Clienting study, which analyzed 66,424 corporate <> startup relationships to understand best-in-class partnerships. 

 

Read the full study here: LINK

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This DS:E Design Science project has the aim to further develop the understanding of how the assessment of corporate <> startup relationships can be effectively measured and how corporations can use this information to improve their relationship management inside and outside the organization (figure below, top right box). ​

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CURRENT STATUS

Peter Borchers has already developed a self-assessment tool called the Readiness Index. The main goal of the Readiness Index is to provide corporations with a way of self-assessing how they are performing regarding their cooperation with start-ups. 

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Self-Assess Your Organization Here: LINK

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Starting in September, ESCP Master students will elaborate on the Readiness Index in a Design Science Master Thesis, combined with the findings of the Venture Clienting study as well as insights from the academic world. Based on the results of the master's thesis, the assessment tool will be further improved and tested in a real-world environment to ensure high usability. ​

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In the end the results of this Design Science project should help coorporations to assess their capability how start-up coorptations and offer next steps how to improve 

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​​​​HOW TO GET INVOLVED?

In general, we are open to any kind of involvement. Whether you are interested in joining the project as a researcher or would like to contribute your expertise from the business side, there are numerous ways to collaborate and make an impact

 

For more information contact Bugra Kilinc via bkilinc(at)escp.eu. 

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