Delta Lloyd: Collaboration between startups and corporates is the key to success

Startups and large corporates are in a mutually beneficial relationship: on the one hand, startups need to connect with corporates which can provide them with useful connections, access to resources, market expertise, and bring them revenue. On the other hand, big companies often find it difficult to innovate due to structural barriers, hence, are in need of the business models and open innovation which startups can give them. Delta Lloyd, which is the partner of the Startupbootcamp Smart City & Living Program, fosters corporate startup engagement and facilitates the innovative and pioneering collaboration between the world of startups and the world of big corporates.

Collaboration between startups and corporates

Although there are many issues that impede the collaboration between startups and corporates, such as lack of trust and mutual interest, legal and financial barriers, and completely different ways of working, all differences of the like should be communicated and solved fast, as Patrick de Zeeuw, co-founder of Startupbootcamp and Innoleaps, says. Corporate startup engagement should be fostered for two main reasons. First, because corporates are looking for new possibilities to create value for their customers and empower their innovative capabilities, and second because startups want to collaborate with corporate organizations to test their product and use the knowledge, brand, and distribution power of large organizations.

Delta Lloyd is one of the corporates which has been trying to work closely with different startups in order to bring innovation to the company. With its Intrapreneur in Residence, Berrie Vlietstra and his team, the company makes its way to find out how corporate startup engagement works and how its collaboration with startups can be maximized.

Collaboration between startups and Delta Lloyd

To Vlietstra, who is also an Integration Lead IT Infrastructure at Delta Lloyd, innovation is crucial. “Innovation is an absolute necessity to deal with the fast changing world. We know that our organization is not well equipped to innovate fast. Delta Lloyd is equipped to produce at scale and to run this efficiently but it has difficulty in situations where it is needed to deviate from standard processes.”

This is also one of the reasons why Delta Llyod collaborates with startups: “It is for the simple fact that startups act fast and are nimble,” Vlietstra explained. Moreover, curiosity and the will to explore more worlds without knowing in advance what the Return on Investment will be are crucial for innovation. “By connecting with the Startupbootcamp ecosystem, serendipity can create a lot of interesting connections.” And these connections are very important because they help Vietstra and his team to see and experience what is happening in the startup world in various domains. It is also a way to collaborate with high potential startups when there are opportunities.

Intrapreneurs in Residence

As an Intrapreneur in Residence, Vietstra and his team have worked with multiple startups, such as Parkeagle, Twingz, Encedo, Mahlzeit,and Porter. One instance of how an Intrapreneur in Residence can help startups in sharing their network and in building bridges is the story behind the collaboration with Parkeagle: “At one of the first meetings with Parkeagle, the team told us that they wanted to introduce smart parking into big cities. If parking places were equipped with sensors, it would become easy to find a parking place. My suggestion was to start with private parking places. Then we decided to start a social experiment. Office space is ill-used and getting scarce. This problem made me think about Parkeagle’s solution. We started with six parking places for charging electric cars in our own garage and equipped them with sensors. Through an app, the drivers can see which parking places are available. When the last place becomes occupied, all drivers receive a message with the request to park their car somewhere else and when the first place becomes available, all drivers receive a message that there is now an opportunity to charge their car. Our experiment is to test if this information will positively influence people’s behavior. If this works, we can scale this solution to contribute to solving the issue with our workplace management. The solution worked, and Parkeagle made a pivot. The next step was to connect an app developer to the Parkeagle team to investigate how their backend could work through ‘open standards’ so the app could connect with our IT infrastructure.”

And this is what being an Intrapreneur in Residence is according to Vlietstra: “Helping the startups is what it is all about. In the long run, you always get some form of profit from it.” During his time as a collaborator with startups, Vlitstra has learned to manage expectations internally and to inform his organization about any feedback. Of course, mistakes are not immune to anyone. “Making mistakes and learning from them is what working with startups is all about. And that is really nice,” Vlietstra highlighted.

 

Feature image FundingSage.