Startup Engagement as Part of the Technology Strategy Planning -How Rheinmetall Automotive Increases Innovation by Using Corporate Venturing

International audienceIn a fast changing environment that is affected by global megatrends, disruptive technological developments and a growing number of new market players, global tier-one suppliers to the automotive industry have to adapt their technology strategy planning by considering current trends in innovation management to maintain their prevailing leading position. This paper presents Rheinmetall Automotive's approach to adopt modern Open Innovation paradigms with a focus on outside-in innovation through Corporate Venturing. Embedded in their Technological Direction Development Process, Rheinmetall Automotive has developed a strategic model to plan startup engagement to improve the current product development and enhance further diversification. Here we describe the several steps how this company-specific strategic model was designed and what prerequisites have to be taken into account to introduce the model in a corporate context

Effects of Internal Corporate Venturing on the Transformation of Established Companies

The organizational capability to adapt to the fast and radical changes of market parameters becomes a prerequisite for companies’ long-term survival. In this context, organizational ambidexterity has gained much attention in research and practice. It is the capability to develop new businesses (exploration) while simultaneously optimizing the existing core businesses (exploitation). Established companies face several challenges in achieving this capability, as the underlying learning modes of exploration and exploitation are mutually incompatible. One way to solve these challenges is to separate the exploration-oriented part from the core organization. Corporate venturing has been widely recognized as one tool to create these dual structures to develop new businesses, based on discontinuous innovation. In recent times, new corporate venturing forms emerge in practice. This growing number of different forms has led to new applications of corporate venturing which go beyond the pure development of new businesses, toward supporting the entrepreneurial transformation of companies. This study aims at answering how different corporate venturing forms contribute to the strategic renewal of established companies. For this purpose, qualitative research methods are used to analyze data from 17 interviews conducted in two German high-tech companies. The study at hand provides empirical evidence in the field of corporate venturing by uncovering new insights about the different transformational effects of corporate venturing initiatives on the core organization. It further reveals that corporate venturing forms can be classified into two categories according to their respective level of entrepreneurship and frequency of execution. Both categories exhibit different transformational effects and can be understood as being complementary to each other

The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing

The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final downselection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument, LOFT will study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions of accretion flows close to black holes and neutron stars, and the supranuclear densities in the interior of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, 10 m2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1° collimated field of view) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM, 2-50 keV, 4 steradian field of view, 1 arcmin source location accuracy, 300 eV spectral resolution). The WFM is equipped with an on-board system for bright events (e.g. GRB) localization. The trigger time and position of these events are broadcast to the ground within 30 s from discovery. In this paper we present the status of the mission at the end of its Phase A stud