Corporate Venturing and Business Model Innovation


Aims

  • To understand how firms evaluate, screen, and select new ventures
  • To analyze the different managerial roles in corporate ventures and the challenges associated with these roles
  • To understand the particular roles of external corporate venturing and corporate venture capital. How can firms use corporate venture capital to spur their own businesses?
  • To understand the tensions between the corporate venturing unit, the business unit and the portfolio firm
  • To apply this knowledge to a real-life situation

Information

Over the past years, small firms and start-ups have started to play an increasingly important role in our economy. R&D spending by small firms has increased and many disruptive innovations have started out as new entrants to an industry, thereby posing a major threat to existing firms. In order to sustain their competitive advantage, it is important for large firms such as Shell, DSM and KLM to tap into the knowledge of these start-ups and incorporate these into the new business development process. Corporate venture capital (whereby firms take a minority position in a small, startup company) is one way in which firms can leverage external partners for the purpose of new business development. In this course, we will focus on the different structures firms can employ to make such investments, and the challenges associated with managing a corporate venturing portfolio and their partners.
 
Format
This course aims to bridge the gap between academic literature and real-world situations. Therefore, the focus will be on applying the readings on real-life cases and cases developed by Harvard Business School. In order to generate an atmosphere in which students learn through both individual study and class interaction, teaching methods will be varied and include a combination of lectures, student presentations, case assignments and instructor-led discussions. Applying the theoretical knowledge on real-life cases is a central aspect of this course. Therefore, guest lectures by corporate venturing managers from leading Dutch companies (e.g. DSM, KLM, and Shell) will complement the theoretical part of the course by bringing cases from their own companies to the classroom. Students will be expected to come prepared to class by having read the mandatory readings and the case. To foster interaction and discussion among students, the number of participants for this course will be limited.

Assessment

Mixed form (100%)

Group project (60%); class participation (15%); weekly quizzes (25%)

Materials

A selection of articles, book chapters, and Harvard Business School cases.