Strategic Collaboration with Startups to Support Corporate Innovation

The proliferation of technology-based startups has directly changed the habits of the wider community to adopt digital services. Supported with digital native company which began to emerge and directlydisrupt various businesses, including finance and various other sectors. Undeniably, with stay relevant and innovative is now the key to corporate success.

Seeing this trend, in the latest #TuesdayStartup session, DailySocial trying to explore the potential for strategic cooperation between corporations and startups and technology companies. There were three speakers who were presented, namely VP of Investor Relations & Strategy of BRI ventures Markus Liman Rahardja, VP of Digital Business Partnership & Development of PT Pegadaian (Persero) Herdi Sularko, and Plt. Director of Digital Economy Kominfo I Nyoman Adhiarna.

Efforts to stay relevant

One of the reasons why corporations ultimately have to rapidly adopt technology into their processes and systems is to stay relevant. Both in the eyes of customers and other related parties. To achieve this, corporations have begun to make many changes and new innovations that all touch technology. Is it related to the product to the potential for collaboration with external parties.

"We are fully aware of the changes in the behavior of the wider community today that have occurred because of the increasing number of people" fintech which offers services such as p2p loans, technology insurance, to wealth management. As a company that has reached the age of 120 years, we also have a variety of other products outside of our main business, namely pawning, by adopting digital we want to expand the company's existence," said Herdi.

Similar to banks and markets, Pegadaian has a fairly large number of branches. Of course, it becomes interesting when these resources are fully utilized by starting to adopt digital with the aim of touching on digital transformation.

The same thing was conveyed by BRI Ventures, which has been trying to continue to bring innovation to stay relevant, especially for companies that are around 100 years old. Not only innovation today but also in the future. In this case, Markus emphasized that BRI Ventures has two paths, namely exploitation and exploration.

"For exploitation we want the current system to be improved again, and for exploration to be an opportunity for us to welcome a new digital ecosystem that we had never thought of exploring before," said Markus.

In this case, BRI Ventures wants to invest in startups that have a mission and vision that are in line with the company's, as corporate venture capital (CVC). Is it in the form of innovation, technology to the network owned. BRI Ventures wants to collaborate with startups that high scaling and high growing.

Collaboration with startups

Currently, BRI Ventures is one of the CVCs that is quite active in investing in several fintech startups in Indonesia. Starting from Investree to Modalku, both of which are considered to be able to provide more benefits for BRI and BRI Ventures itself.

"This is what then distinguishes between 'vendor' with ventures. As a CVC, ideally, we want to do strategic collaborations to bring relevant and useful technology to both parties," said Markus.

Not only in the financial sector, BRI Ventures has also invested in TaniHub which is a agritech leading in the country. The goal, of course, is still in touch with financing, but to take advantage of new, more effective channels.

On the other hand, for Pegadaian which has not played in terms of investment, to be able to provide new innovations and adopt technology quickly, collaboration or strategic cooperation with digital native startups, massively have been done by them. Starting from establishing partnerships with Tokopedia, to hiring professionals, whose goal is to help companies carry out digital transformation.

"So far, most corporations only rely on consultants when they want to make changes or bring new innovations. Through collaboration with startups and technology companies, at least it can refresh mindset our internal team while accelerating the digital transformation process," said Herdi.

Government support

As a regulator in this case, the government has a crucial role. Not only to launch businesses owned by startups and corporations, but also to make it easier for them to have dialogues and discussions with regulators. Although each sector is handled directly by the relevant ministry, Kominfo can support all in terms of technology and related innovation.

"One interesting example that then must be observed is during the pandemic, doctor consultation service online offered by startups healthtech become very relevant," said I Nyoman.

However, it is undeniable that with the breadth of problems faced in various sectors, technology and startups that try to offer related services have to delay or be patient, because of the priorities of each ministry.

For example technology smart farming and IoT, which can be useful for farmers and fishermen, are not prioritized by the relevant ministries because their focus is more on financing and other things that are more needed by farmers at this time.

"Each ministry has different priorities and perspectives. However, it is better for the government to listen to requests from startups, technology companies or corporations who want to present new solutions using technology," said I Nyoman.