Do we really need start-ups for large corporations
The author - Lyudmila Dmitrieva
At the Startup Village-2015 Forum held in Skolkovo on June 2-3, one of the central places was taken by the discussion on the topic “Do we need start-ups for large corporations”.
Not surprisingly, this particular discussion has aroused great interest. Why? Now I will tell you how everything was ...
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The discussion was attended by representatives of SAP (Mike Kemelmacher, Vice President, Head of SAP Innovation Center in Israel), a Russian bank, a car factory, a developer of network equipment and other representatives of Russian and foreign business.
It is surprising that opinions about whether large corporations need start-ups, or whether they can safely live without them, are divided. Moreover, representatives of large companies expressed directly opposite points of view.
I will start with positive points of view and approaches for start-ups.
High-tech companies, such as, for example, SAP, develop their ecosystems, create special investment funds that work with start-ups, as well as with universities in many countries around the world, including Russia. Sounds very inspiring.
Well, move on. The following opinion expressed by the representative of the automobile plant, can be attributed, rather, to a neutral one.
Automobile plant is a mass product manufacturer, everything is highly regulated here, so there are restrictions on attracting new ideas. From the appearance of the idea to its implementation can take from one to ten years. Although there are areas where everything can happen faster, for example, software. Nevertheless, a lot depends on hardware, which just does not keep up with innovative software developments. Therefore, it is almost impossible to use start-ups quite effectively. Nevertheless, the company is looking at start-ups with interest, which can be somehow used in the future.
But what do our banks think? How do they relate to progress and innovation? We'll see…
Let's start with the fact that start-ups need to understand several key issues, 1 - how to start working with a large corporation, 2 - how to continue working, 3 - how to finish working, 4 - the most important question - how not to go bankrupt.
After all, a large corporation develops in unhurried, stable steps, trying to rely on reliable, proven solutions.
As a result, it comes to innovation when the company is stuck into the wall. As a rule, in large corporations this happens at full speed - you just fly into the concrete wall with your head. After that, finally, there is a need for innovation.
That is, in other words, a sufficiently large crisis should occur in the organization. In all large companies there is inertia. The larger the company, the more difficult it is to translate into new rails. And this is completely irrelevant to the industry. Large technology companies are also difficult to translate into new rails, like large banks. Because there is a bureaucratic structure, the protection of its own decisions. If a great company has already achieved something, then it always believes that it will do everything itself.
It is a completely mistaken opinion that big companies work well with small start-ups. Both in terms of the purchase of services, and in terms of the purchase of the companies themselves. There are many entrepreneurs who have made companies and sold them to reputable corporations. To the question: "What happened to your technology?", The answer sounds: "Who knows, dissolved." Large companies put innovations on the shelf if they buy a start-up company. In many ways, for this and buy to destroy potential competitors.
And if the real work has begun, then you need to be ready for very long pilots. Big companies are used to buying from large suppliers. It is clear that these companies have huge budgets of pre-sales, they cost nothing to spend a million dollars, especially on some large Russian bank. Therefore, when you look at the death of small-sized B2B companies, you can see at what point this death occurs. As the start-ups themselves say, we started 25 pilots, they have been going on for a year and a half, we spent the entire budget, we borrowed and spent again, and now we died because we did not have enough resources to complete at least one pilot.
Well, large banks have always been and remain conservative organizations. Perhaps this is their main strength.
What does a start-up look like from a large corporation? You, as a start-aper, come and say: "Look, what a cool thing."
Now imagine the situation: here you come to the supermarket and see that there are a lot of cool pieces hanging out at the checkout. Perhaps you make an impulse purchase, such as - the cool thing - is useful. Put it in your pocket and move on. In most cases, the person who goes shopping knows what he wants. He has a problem to solve.
And here it is - a fundamental point that sounded during the discussion: formulate an actual problem that a start-up can solve for its potential customer. If you have made excellent technology, excellent service, but you don’t know at all how it can help specific people in companies to solve their specific business problems, there is no chance.
Nevertheless, large companies have, as has been said, practically rested their heads on the concrete walls of some problems, where they are waiting for start-ups with their ideas and developments.
Enumerate the areas that were announced:
1 - work with data. Any bank is a large data repository (we will not call it a “graveyard”). Everything related to data processing, getting benefits from data, both internal and external, as well as their integration, are key tasks;
2 - technologies related to improving the quality of risk management for banks, for example, this is the main bread;
3- various payment technologies, for example, money transfers from one individual to another individual have an extremely high cost, which must be reduced;
4 - creating applications on the platforms of large software companies.
I don’t know how much this discussion will really help the start-upers who participated in the Forum, but what makes you think that is for sure.
At the Startup Village-2015 Forum held in Skolkovo on June 2-3, one of the central places was taken by the discussion on the topic “Do we need start-ups for large corporations”.
Not surprisingly, this particular discussion has aroused great interest. Why? Now I will tell you how everything was ...
')
The discussion was attended by representatives of SAP (Mike Kemelmacher, Vice President, Head of SAP Innovation Center in Israel), a Russian bank, a car factory, a developer of network equipment and other representatives of Russian and foreign business.
It is surprising that opinions about whether large corporations need start-ups, or whether they can safely live without them, are divided. Moreover, representatives of large companies expressed directly opposite points of view.
I will start with positive points of view and approaches for start-ups.
High-tech companies, such as, for example, SAP, develop their ecosystems, create special investment funds that work with start-ups, as well as with universities in many countries around the world, including Russia. Sounds very inspiring.
Well, move on. The following opinion expressed by the representative of the automobile plant, can be attributed, rather, to a neutral one.
Automobile plant is a mass product manufacturer, everything is highly regulated here, so there are restrictions on attracting new ideas. From the appearance of the idea to its implementation can take from one to ten years. Although there are areas where everything can happen faster, for example, software. Nevertheless, a lot depends on hardware, which just does not keep up with innovative software developments. Therefore, it is almost impossible to use start-ups quite effectively. Nevertheless, the company is looking at start-ups with interest, which can be somehow used in the future.
But what do our banks think? How do they relate to progress and innovation? We'll see…
Let's start with the fact that start-ups need to understand several key issues, 1 - how to start working with a large corporation, 2 - how to continue working, 3 - how to finish working, 4 - the most important question - how not to go bankrupt.
After all, a large corporation develops in unhurried, stable steps, trying to rely on reliable, proven solutions.
As a result, it comes to innovation when the company is stuck into the wall. As a rule, in large corporations this happens at full speed - you just fly into the concrete wall with your head. After that, finally, there is a need for innovation.
That is, in other words, a sufficiently large crisis should occur in the organization. In all large companies there is inertia. The larger the company, the more difficult it is to translate into new rails. And this is completely irrelevant to the industry. Large technology companies are also difficult to translate into new rails, like large banks. Because there is a bureaucratic structure, the protection of its own decisions. If a great company has already achieved something, then it always believes that it will do everything itself.
It is a completely mistaken opinion that big companies work well with small start-ups. Both in terms of the purchase of services, and in terms of the purchase of the companies themselves. There are many entrepreneurs who have made companies and sold them to reputable corporations. To the question: "What happened to your technology?", The answer sounds: "Who knows, dissolved." Large companies put innovations on the shelf if they buy a start-up company. In many ways, for this and buy to destroy potential competitors.
And if the real work has begun, then you need to be ready for very long pilots. Big companies are used to buying from large suppliers. It is clear that these companies have huge budgets of pre-sales, they cost nothing to spend a million dollars, especially on some large Russian bank. Therefore, when you look at the death of small-sized B2B companies, you can see at what point this death occurs. As the start-ups themselves say, we started 25 pilots, they have been going on for a year and a half, we spent the entire budget, we borrowed and spent again, and now we died because we did not have enough resources to complete at least one pilot.
Well, large banks have always been and remain conservative organizations. Perhaps this is their main strength.
What does a start-up look like from a large corporation? You, as a start-aper, come and say: "Look, what a cool thing."
Now imagine the situation: here you come to the supermarket and see that there are a lot of cool pieces hanging out at the checkout. Perhaps you make an impulse purchase, such as - the cool thing - is useful. Put it in your pocket and move on. In most cases, the person who goes shopping knows what he wants. He has a problem to solve.
And here it is - a fundamental point that sounded during the discussion: formulate an actual problem that a start-up can solve for its potential customer. If you have made excellent technology, excellent service, but you don’t know at all how it can help specific people in companies to solve their specific business problems, there is no chance.
Nevertheless, large companies have, as has been said, practically rested their heads on the concrete walls of some problems, where they are waiting for start-ups with their ideas and developments.
Enumerate the areas that were announced:
1 - work with data. Any bank is a large data repository (we will not call it a “graveyard”). Everything related to data processing, getting benefits from data, both internal and external, as well as their integration, are key tasks;
2 - technologies related to improving the quality of risk management for banks, for example, this is the main bread;
3- various payment technologies, for example, money transfers from one individual to another individual have an extremely high cost, which must be reduced;
4 - creating applications on the platforms of large software companies.
I don’t know how much this discussion will really help the start-upers who participated in the Forum, but what makes you think that is for sure.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/260279/
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