A study by HTW Berlin and the Startup Association focuses on the collaboration between DAX-listed companies and startups. The authors examined 470 startups that have received financing or entered into a collaboration since 2011 and came to some interesting conclusions.
Collaboration between startups and DAX-listed companies has increased fivefold in the past five years, according to a key finding of the study. Corporations in the IT and communications sectors collaborate most frequently with young companies. Almost one in three DAX-listed companies in this sector cooperates with a startup. In second place are the financial sector with 21 percent of startup collaborations, followed by the media sector with 16 percent, and the automotive industry with 14 percent. The four DAX-listed companies that collaborate with the most startups also operate in these three sectors. Deutsche Telekom has 60 collaborations, followed by the former DAX-listed company ProSiebenSat. 1 Media with 59, SAP with 51, and BMW with 24. The four leaders together account for more than half of all collaboration formats with startups.
“Cooperation is an absolutely necessary approach”
Julian Kawohl, Professor of Strategic Management at HTW Berlin, says:
"To successfully establish digital ecosystems and platforms, as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and others are doing, cooperation and external openness are absolutely essential for DAX companies. Our study shows that startups, with their scaling and growth potential, can play a key role for established companies. To ensure that corporate-startup partnerships don't end up as mere digitalization activism and tokenism, DAX companies must transform themselves even faster."
Small and medium-sized businesses and family businesses should also become more active in collaborating with startups, says Kawohl.
