Open Access

Franz Simon, Vincent Delke, Rainer Harms

• Startups have the potential to transform industries as they follow partly divergent business strategies and have the ability to develop new innovative products. The evolving fields of digitalization, sustainability and urbanization highlight the direction of change. Due to enormous time pressure and lack of knowledge, corporations rely heavily on external sources of knowledge to increase innovativeness. Therein, startups take a special role. Joint R&D projects, investments or strategic buyer-supplier agreements with startups grant corporations access to their innovative technologies. This paper gives insights into the organization of search processes to identify innovative startups and highlights approaches to initiate collaborations. Therefore, a multiple-case study among automotive OEMs and suppliers was conducted. The research ends with organizational structures, an identification process, and various instruments developed for the identification of startup innovations. Furthermore, propositions are made for a successful collaboration between startups and established corporations, displaying the role of purchasing in startup management, the need to take fast decisions, secure technical support by experts within their organization and build strong relationships with partners within their supply chain and new partners, as for example venture capitalists.