This week (07/13/2015), reknown German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported under the headline “The Nerd in my company” on innovative strategies and cooperations between startups and medium-sized companies.” Both sides benefit from these cooperations. Startups bring in new perspectives, energy and the methodology to react quickly, as the fast-paced online world demands. The established businesses,on the other hand, offer decade-long know-how combined with a broad network of customers and suppliers.”

This also applies to the successful collaboration of the digital consultancy etventure and the MDAX-listed corporation Kloeckner & Co. CEO Gisbert Ruehl, as German Handelsblatt puts it, “first travelled to Silicon Valley and then to Berlin, where he met the digital consultants at etventure.

The pragmatic Silicon Valley approach combined with the etventure philosophy during the identification of potential business models and their implementation impressed Kloeckner executive Ruehl. As he arrived at etventure “the entire wall in the conference room was full of thought experiments and post-its.“ “They called my customers and asked them straight forward: Where do you still experience problems?” Ruehl is cited in the Handelsblatt.  Ruehl didn’t want to wait until a startup arrives and makes them look old. This gave rise to the digital unit kloeckner.i, which has been built by the traditional company together with etventure.

“Within a few months they created a platform, allowing Kloeckner customers to see how much of their preordered steel was still left and if necessary, enabling them to conclude new contracts. (…) “In the headquarters, they first would have created a specification sheet, weighing up the chances and risks.” “We would have needed a year to complete this”, Ruehl told Handelsblatt.