European enterprises engage with startups to innovate

European businesses are among the world's most active when it comes to finding innovation through start-ups. This is according to Samsung's new report, The Open Economy. According to it, businesses are changing the way they’re innovating, and are focusing on bringing in and collaborating with young and inspiring start-ups.

Out of the five countries with the highest number of large companies engaged with start-ups, four are in Europe, the report states. Almost all European corporations surveyed (97 percent) have carefully analyzed the need for open innovation. Not all have acted on their findings just yet.

Just as with other new technologies and practices, security remains a big issue, it was said.

"Having cyber-security systems that engage securely with any device or platform will allow large companies to cross boundaries, calling on expertise from smaller startups to work within their business and add momentum to their drive to innovate," says Marcos Eguillor at BinaryKnowledge.

Another interesting side-product of this new approach to research and development is the collaboration between rivals. The report says research and development is not cheap, forcing businesses to team up, even with former competitors.

Anthony Bruce, of PwC, believes that future businesses will drop their in-built suspicions of outsiders and competitors to remain innovative and competitive on the global stage. "At a corporate level, it will be absolutely critical to be open-minded about where the next opportunity and the next big idea is going to come from, even if it’s coming from a competitor."

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