初创企业与大型企业在危机中合作的 3种策略

　　近年来，越来越多的大型跨国企业正在积极寻求与初创企业进行合作。对大型企业来说，初创企业可以帮助其更好地落地创新方案，并提供新鲜思路；对初创企业来说，这种合作能助其一展商业抱负，实现自身价值。中欧国际工商学院国际商务及战略学副教授沙梅恩（Shameen Prashantham）多年来致力于研究初创企业与大型跨国企业的合作之道，他形象地称之为“与巨猿共舞”。在本文中，他结合丰富案例，探讨了在面对危机时，初创企业与大型企业之间的合作策略。

　　A large-scale crisis – such as the 2020 coronavirus pandemic – can (and must) bring out the best in humanity. In the midst of much undeniable strife, myriad organisations around the world have been racing against time to come up with valuable innovations, including start-ups from California to Bangalore and Singapore, that are generating new solutions or making existing ones available. Some of these efforts, including those of the European Union, involves bringing together small and large organisations to achieve outcomes that neither can accomplish on their own.

　　像2020年新冠肺炎疫情这样的大规模危机，其实能够甚至必然会激发人性中美好的部分。疫情固然引发了一些纷争，但世界各地的无数企业，包括初创企业在内，都在争分夺秒地试图以创新理念打造全新解决方案，或者让现有解决方案得到更广泛的应用。这其中的一些努力，促成了大企业和小企业之间的合作，取得了大家各自为战所不可能实现的成就。

　　However, while these initiatives are laudable, a note of caution may be in order. My research for over a decade on corporation-start-up partnering – which I refer to as “dancing with gorillas” – points to a paradox: while there is scope for win-win relationships between small and large organisations by tapping their relative strengths (for instance, one has scale and the other speed), the very differences that make them attractive to each other also make it difficult for them to work together.

　　这些举措值得赞赏，但仍有一些注意事项需要关注。十多年来，我一直在研究大企业与初创企业之间的合作——我将之形容为“与巨猿共舞”——我的研究结果指向了一条悖论：尽管通过利用各自的相关优势，如一家具有规模优势而另一家发展迅速，大企业和小企业有机会实现双赢，但巨大差异性在让它们彼此吸引的同时，也会为它们之间的合作制造麻烦。

　　Therefore, it is important to thoughtfully harness partnering between large and small organisations in turbulent times. The following are three partnering strategies that can help.

　　因此，在经济动荡时期，谨慎对待大企业和小企业之间的合作关系至关重要。以下是三种可供借鉴的合作策略：

　　Leverage the urgency of a crisis to focus the mind on the specific potential synergy

　　利用危机的紧迫性，专注于具体的、可实现的协同效应

　　The prospect of a win-win is all too often a vague idea. Being clear about the synergy is important. In some cases, it may be that the small firm addresses a pain point of the larger organisation.

　　很多时候，“达成双赢”只是一个模糊概念。合作企业需要明确究竟什么是“协同效应”，在一些情况下，可能就是小企业帮助大企业解决痛点。

　　Consider HiNounou, a Shanghai-based start-up founded by French entrepreneur Charles Bark that offers home wellness kits for seniors comprised of genomic testing, medical devices and AI-enabled telemedicine which helps people keep in touch with elderly relatives remotely, and monitor the risk of chronic diseases. This start-up, which has consistently partnered with large corporations, has accelerated its partnering efforts with French multinational St Gobain and used its expertise to urgently provide them with anti-coronavirus survival kits that include masks and disinfectant gel.

　　由法国企业家夏尔·朴（Charles Bark）在上海创立的企业诺童（HiNounou）就是这样一个案例。诺童为老年人提供家庭健康套件，包括基因检测、医疗设备，以及AI支持的远程医疗服务，以帮助人们与年迈的亲人保持远程联系，监控其慢性疾病风险。这家初创企业一直与大企业保持合作，最近它们加快了与法国跨国企业圣戈班集团（St Gobain）的合作，利用专业知识为圣戈班集团紧急供应抗击新冠肺炎疫情的急救包，其中包括口罩和消毒液等。

　　In other cases, the synergy stems from a venture utilising a large organisation’s technological building blocks. Sehat Kahani is a Pakistani start-up founded by Dr. Sara Saeed (CEO) and Dr. Iffat Zaffar (COO) that uses telemedicine to provide remote medical advice to patients while at the same time tapping the underutilised capacities of women doctors. This start-up’s relationship with Microsoft has helped it rapidly scale its mobile app and gain traction owing to the coronavirus crisis. Participating in large corporations’ partner ecosystems provides support in the scaling process, and in this case the timing was opportune in terms of social impact, with the urgency of the situation making the synergy even clearer and eliciting quick decisions from both parties.

　　在其他案例中，协同效应则源于初创企业对大企业的技术构件的利用。Sehat Kahani（意为“医疗故事”）公司由巴基斯坦人沙拉·萨伊德（Sara Saeed）博士和依法·扎法尔（Iffat Zaffar）博士创立，他们分别担任公司首席执行官与首席运营官，该企业充分利用闲置的女性医生资源，通过远程服务为患者提供医疗建议。这家初创企业与微软合作后，其手机应用的使用规模迅速扩大，在新冠疫情期间，备受用户青睐。成为大企业合作生态系统中的一员，对于该初创企业的规模化多有助益。在这个案例中，协同效应在危机背景下显得分外清晰，促使双方迅速做出决策，就扩大社会影响而言，时机把握得恰到好处。

　　Leverage expertise in interfaces between large and small organisations

　　利用大企业和小企业合作机制中的专业知识

　　Recognising synergy is one thing, working together is quite another – due to vast structural and organisational differences. Some large organisations have worked hard to establish partner interfaces with start-ups such as corporate accelerators (cohorts) or pitching competitions (funnels). The expertise to build effective corporation-start-up interfaces can help to accelerate collaboration between these dissimilar organisations in turbulent times.

　　认可协同效应是一回事，但实际合作是另一回事，大企业和小企业在结构和组织上存在着巨大差异。一些大企业通过设立加速器或举办创业比赛等方式，与初创企业建立合作对接。在两者之间建立有效的合作机制，有助于在经济动荡时期促进不同企业间的合作。

　　To illustrate, Gregor Gimmy and Matthias Meyer, the co-founders of BMW Start-up Garage, deployed their interfacing expertise in their current outfit, 27pilots, to set up Start-ups Against Coronavirus. This interface enables start-ups to address large organisations’ crisis-induced pain points in areas such as remote work, virtual events and supply chain management, amongst others. For their part, large corporations are able to rapidly obtain solutions from (often well-funded) innovative start-ups, thus becoming their “venture clients”. For example, Leena AI, an Indian start-up, quickly developed a COVID-19 HR chat-bot, which is being deployed by LafargeHolcim, a large Swiss cement manufacturer – an outcome enabled by this initiative’s interfacing expertise.

　　又例如，宝马初创车库（BMW Start-up Garage）联合创始人格雷戈里·吉米（Gregor Gimmy）和马提亚斯·迈耶（Matthias Meyer）在他们目前供职的机构27pilots中部署了合作机制，用于孵化抗击新冠疫情的初创企业。通过这一合作，初创企业能帮助大企业解决由危机引起的在远程办公、线上活动、供应链管理等方面的痛点；大企业也能够迅速地从（通常是资金充足的）创新型初创企业那里获取解决方案，成为后者的“企业客户”。比如，印度初创公司Leena AI迅速开发了一款COVID-19 HR聊天机器人，目前被瑞士大型水泥制造公司拉法基豪瑞集团（LafargeHolcim）所采用。这一成果便是得益于上述合作机制。

　　Leverage pre-crisis exemplars of partnering between large and small organisations

　　借鉴危机发生前大企业与小企业的合作范例

　　Despite the best intentions, moving quickly during troubled times may not be easy. Proven success stories of small-large firm partnering may be well placed to hit the ground running in a crisis. An African start-up illustrates this well. When I visited Bayer’s G4A digital health team in Berlin a couple of years ago, the last thing I expected was to learn about a start-up from Ghana that had participated in its accelerator. Bisa (which means “ask” in the Twi language), is a mobile app that allows people to get medical advice. Conceived during the Ebola crisis by a young technology entrepreneur, Raindolf Owusu, who has been referred to as the Larry Page of Ghana, this young firm has enhanced its capabilities and visibility by partnering with Bayer. In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Bisa has offered a lot of free advice and information dissemination to the public in Ghana and Senegal.

　　不管想法有多好，在经济糟糕的时候采取迅速行动都并非易事。先前大企业与小企业之间的成功合作案例或许可以作为危机时期的借鉴，有家非洲初创企业便是如此。几年前，我在柏林拜访了拜耳的G4A数字健康团队，出乎意料地发现来自加纳的一家初创企业参与过拜耳的加速器项目。Bisa（加纳特威语中的意思是“问”）是一款为人们提供医疗建议的手机应用，由年轻的创业者雷恩道夫·奥乌苏（Raindolf Owusu）在埃博拉疫情爆发期间开发，他因此被称为“加纳的拉里·佩奇（Larry Page，谷歌联合创始人）”。这家崭露头角的公司通过与拜耳合作，提升了自身实力和曝光度。在此次新冠肺炎疫情期间，Bisa为加纳和塞内加尔的民众提供了大量的免费建议和信息。

　　Although the bonds of our strong relationships with family and friends are especially valuable in times of crisis, bridges built with highly dissimilar actors can also create value in such a period – and efforts to do this prior to a crisis can bear fruit during turbulent times. Israel’s Sheba Hospital, a medical centre with valuable expertise in partnering with start-ups through its ARC Innovation Center, was able to rapidly mobilise start-up ideas via a coronavirus hackathon. This example, and those of start-ups like Bisa, Hinounou and Sehat Kahani, show how pre-crisis investments in social capital with dissimilar actors help organisations respond rapidly and collaboratively to a societal crisis.

　　在危机时期，我们和亲友之间的紧密纽带非常珍贵，但迥然相异的行为体之间所建立的连接同样具有价值——危机前所做的努力，可以在危机时开花结果。以色列的舍巴医院（Sheba Hospital）通过其ARC创新中心与初创企业合作，积累了丰富经验。通过一场新冠病毒“黑客马拉松 ”，舍巴医院能够迅速推动创新理念落地。这一案例与之前提到的Bisa、诺童、Sehat Kahani等初创企业的案例，都说明了危机前对不同行为体进行社会资本投资，可帮助企业在面对社会危机时做出快速、协同的反应。

　　To conclude, the ability to partner with dissimilar actors represents an important means of coping resiliently and flexibly with a large-scale crisis; those that have it ought to leverage it, and support those that don’t. It is a capability that pays off in the best – and worst – of times. And it provides hope for a post-crisis decade when the world economy rebuilds and continues its pursuit of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

　　总而言之，与不同行为体建立合作的能力对于灵活应对大规模危机至关重要；拥有这方面能力的企业应该尽己所能帮助能力不足的企业。这是一种在最好和最坏的时候都能获得回报的能力。它能为疫情结束后的十年创造希望，确保世界经济重建，并朝着2030年可持续发展目标继续迈进。