Forging corporate-startup partnerships provide meaningful opportunities to engage in the innovation process, creating win-win scenarios that end up benefiting the ecosystem as a whole. Deeply entrenched in its ethos is to appreciate the value of partnerships in driving growth, rather than trying to internalise all processes and doing everything on your own.
From the corporate perspective, corporate-startup partnerships help stakeholders bring faster innovation to an increasingly competitive landscape and in turn help accelerate product development. From the startup side, collaborations like this bring a deeper understanding of the market landscape and industry. There is also the upside of helping startups gain access to the larger partner’s market. Multiple ways of collaboration have popped up in recent years, with each one premised on featuring an ecosystem-centric approach.
SAP and XS APAC: leading the charge for corporate-startup collaborations
An example of this ecosystem-centric design is SAP’s expanded innovation initiatives. In a conversation with e27, Morikawa Hakaru, Vice President and Head of Industry and Customer Advisory shared key insights on SAP’s strategy in scaling win-win partnerships and SAP’s priorities in Asia, particularly in expanding its innovation footprint. This is illustrated by the frequency of its partner webinars and roundtable discussions with various stakeholders, culminating in an insightful discussion at Echelon 2022. SAP has been active in its commitment to nurturing innovation through the decades, and the company is quickly adapting to the changing times.
SAP shares and reiterates the relevance of the corporate-startup alliances in terms of opportunities. “From our point of view, corporate and startup collaborations can help corporates operate in a far more agile manner and can quickly adapt when any disruption happens.”
Also read: DigitalOcean: One of the world’s fastest-growing cloud computing platforms will be at Echelon!
In this spirit of partnerships and collaborations, SAP has teamed up with XS APAC, a growth advisory whose mandate is to take a critical view of business strategies and cascade that to implementable corporate initiatives, identify and pursue feasible sources of growth capital, and finally bring onboard their extended network spanning industry captains, major corporations, governments and collaborative ecosystems, to bring businesses to regional markets.
SAP and XS APAC’s partnership on a series of engagements highlights this commitment such as with the series of webinars entitled “Let’s make a deal: How to do Business with Large Enterprises?” and “How to manage your digital offerings to drive growth and cut costs”; their virtual talk on creating value within one’s investment portfolio entitled “Value Creation: Portfolio – Virtual Roundtable”; and their roundtable discussion held at last year’s Echelon Asia Summit, entitled “How can startups scale sustainably and enter new markets through corporate partnerships?”
Corporate-startup collaborations are evolving at a clear path moving forward
There is a lot of development in how strategic partnerships between corporations and startups are formed, stemming from the visible impact that these collaborations entail. Corporations can engage startups in multiple ways — from product diversification to market access, acceleration, and technology integration. Working with startups ensures that corporations remain relevant and that they do not get disrupted.
At the Value Creation: Portfolio – Virtual Roundtable, where Herston Elton Powers, Co-founder and Managing Partner of 1982 Ventures served as one of the panellists, he explained that “We expect more corporate-VC collaborations as specialist VC funds, like 1982 Ventures, can provide more than strong financial returns. Corporates can leverage our expertise in fintech and access to the early-stage startup ecosystem to achieve their strategic objectives.”
1982 Ventures is a fintech-focused VC fund that corporates have been partnering with to accelerate their digitisation journey, their entry into fintech, and embolden their corporate VC activities. Herston further explained, “Our corporate limited partners (LPs) invested in our fund to gain access to co-investments into fast-growing fintech startups and innovative tech solutions. We support our corporate LPs in identifying fintech and B2B solutions that will benefit their underlying business and customers. 1982 Ventures supports our corporate LPs to create win-win partnerships with the next generation of fintech champions in Southeast Asia.”
Also read: Opportunities abound for Hong Kong’s largest I&T Career Expo
This emphasises the various ways in which corporate-startup collaborations can help materially impact the mission of both stakeholders. Setting as a great example for the broader ecosystem, these partnerships are why many startups are inclined to network and engage with corporates seeking out joint ventures.
Mohan Belani, CEO of e27, adds “The outlook for corporate-startup collaborations is very positive. For corporations to be effectively working with these startups, it shows forward thinking. Working with startups helps provide corporates with an edge by seeing new opportunities that they might have previously missed. It also helps to work with very smart and talented people solving problems at scale.”
It is also especially important in today’s ecosystem where things are moving very quickly. Corporations are now dealing with competition from multiple different geographies and stages of organisations, and an effective way to mitigate these risks is to accelerate innovation through successful strategic partnerships.
Success in corporate-startup collaboration
Siddharth, Director of Strategic Accounts & Partnerships at VersaFleet strongly believes that partnerships will help accelerate the company’s business growth, especially in terms of having customer base access and resources from corporates.
To name a few important case studies, VersaFleet is also working with McKinsey’s Singapore Digital Capability Centre. As the next steps, VersaFleet has integrated its solution with McKinsey’s Model Factory in a Box (MFIB) and is now available for showcasing.
VersaFleet is also actively working with Industry 4.0 Human Capital Initiative, the first programme in Singapore dedicated to helping companies prepare and implement successful Industry 4.0 transformation.
The Industry 4.0 Human Capital Initiative (IHCI), a programme by the Singapore Business Federation and Workforce Singapore, is the first of its kind in Singapore to equip companies with people management and job redesign skills required for successful Industry 4.0 transformation. Through the programme, companies will develop the technology and workforce transformation roadmap that includes strategic HR/manpower planning and change the management plan to support future implementation. Companies that completed the programme have successfully managed to increase revenue through increased output, improved productivity, and improved machine effectiveness.
Driving the vision of innovation in 2023
In the 21st century, the fastest companies that convert big ideas into business outcomes are the winners. The only way this is possible is with a culture of innovation that encourages organisations to stay ahead of technology trends, and for SAP, this means working with startups that provide value to their customers. The programmes remain stage and industry agnostic with their approach. SAP also ensures diversity in its innovation programmes, empowering underrepresented founders to kickstart growth within the company.
Also read: Bringing global insights straight to you with Regional Meetup 2023
Innovation in 2023 will also see an increase in collaboration efforts, not just in quantity but also in quality. “If you look at the early days of the ecosystem, it started mainly with startups pitching to corporates and doing a demo. It then evolved to [becoming] a corporate-driven accelerator programme. And now it’s gotten into venture building, where corporates themselves work with organisations to build internal companies and spin them off into new startups that corporates take a stake in.”
What’s next for corporate-startup collaboration?
During the panel discussion in Echelon 2022, Aaron encouraged startups to never stop innovating and to always share solutions that can help startup founders manage various situations, including the good, bad, and ugly.
The real value of SAP lies in its support towards startup growth illustrated in two ways: by being a technical partner or by being a consumer of SAP’s tech solutions. SAP focuses on the value that startups bring, and how they disrupt markets and differentiate themselves through their products and innovations. “Startups can develop their IP, integrate with SAP solutions, and make their IP sellable”, Aaron shared. With this, startups that become tech partners of SAP can tap 440,000 customers across 180 countries.
If you’re a startup in the Southeast Asian region looking to tap into its global network, join SAP’s global ecosystem and get unparalleled access, curated mentorship, and technical guidance. To learn more, visit https://www.sap.com/sea/index.html and https://sap.io/startup-programmes/.
–
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto via Pexels
– –
This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SAP
We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.
The post Corporate-startup collaborations signal a boost in the startup ecosystem appeared first on e27.