Biggies want freshers to start them up in new biz
View(s):There’s a lot going on for many local corporates in terms of fresh ideas. Firms such as Expolanka Holdings PLC (Expo), Guardian Capital Partners PLC and Hemas Holdings PLC are some of the public quoted firms that have cottoned onto the start-up trailblazers.
While Expo aims to facilitate an incubation centre that provides a whole new start-up ecosystem for logistics related fresh thinking, Guardian Capital has deployed Rs. 42 million into start-up, Swiss Institute for Service Industry Development (Pvt) Ltd s. Hemas has funded three start-ups during the past two years – all related to healthcare, leisure and logistics which are its core businesses.
Slingshot
Dr. Himesh Fernando, Director of Innovation and Business Development at Hemas, told the Business Times that the company started Slingshot, a start-up incubator programme in 2015 with the objective of providing entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch inventions and business concepts in line with the group’s business interests and growth strategy. “We invested just under a million US dollars during the last two years on the three start-ups,” he said.
Hemas hopes to fund three such start-ups each year. “The idea is to make our products and services future-ready,” Dr. Fernando said adding that Hemas aims at securing a leg in a particular business that has potential to be big in the future.
Hanif Yusoof, Group CEO Expo told the Business Times that Expo has recognised how the world is moving now and it will be a world where technology will play a key role. “In this context innovation is a must. We’re already looking at the possibilities of roping in start-ups that are related to logistics sector to our company.”
He said that Expo won’t confine to start-ups in Sri Lanka only. “We’re looking across the globe for such ventures,” he said adding that Expo is already talking to people with some interesting start-ups. “Apart from this, we’ll be helping those with ideas for start-ups in the logistics and freight forwarding.”
“As for Guardian Capital’s investment – the Swiss Institute is a start-up venture focused on providing vocational training to the hospitality and banking sector. The institute has entered into partnerships with the Swiss Hotel Management Academy of Lucerne and the Swiss Banking Consulting and Training Academy, which will provide certification and curriculum,” the company has said.
Start-ups and established companies bring two distinct and central skills to the table, analysts say. While start-ups shine at giving birth to great proof of concepts, larger companies are much better at profitably scaling them, an analyst said noting that start-ups are better at distinguishing and unlocking budding talent.
“The smaller companies can move sooner and more agilely to decide if the new product or business is viable. And assume product or business produces satisfactory results, then the big company will acquire it,” another analyst noted saying that one such company that has done this quite well over the years is Cisco.
He added that many big companies regularly end up initiating things they can make, not what people want. “Successful established companies are alert on growing scale and are often better at scaling proof of concepts than building new products from scratch. They have huge advantages in procurement, distribution, and manufacturing, together with sales and marketing advantages, he added. (DE)