Munich When delegations from China came to Germany in the past, they were often interested in one question: How do you build family businesses? In the republic of the “hidden champions”, the emissaries from the Far East hoped for tips on how their own start-ups can become long-term companies.
Turning start-ups into the family businesses of tomorrow – that is also the goal of an institution that is launching in Munich these days. She wants to connect medium-sized companies closely with founders and scientists in a completely new way. The “FamilienunternehmerTUM” start-up center is an initiative from Europe’s largest start-up factory, UnternehmerTUM in Garching near Munich.
The plan is ambitious: the start-up center should help to digitize medium-sized companies faster and more effectively. The new unit should be successful through road shows, personal contacts, but above all through tangible products and business ideas.
“With us, family businesses not only find start-ups, but also space to experiment: How, for example, can artificial intelligence be used?”, Says Susanne Klatten, financier and head of the supervisory board at UnternehmerTUM: “You will find answers in a joint project. And founders in return find partners, mentors and investors with staying power, ”continues the BMW major shareholder to the Handelsblatt.
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“We have enough congresses where innovation is discussed”, assists CEO and co-founder Helmut Schönenberger: “It is better to show specifically what technology and digitization can really do.” Future competitiveness depends on a new corporate culture and a spirit of optimism of the country.
Internally, the image of a “digital roller” has solidified, a collective hike towards championship. Christian Mohr, son of an entrepreneurial family from Allgäu and once a KPMG consultant, is the founder and boss of 50 employees at FamilienunternehmerTUM. Two years ago he introduced the idea of a new medium-sized business promotion from the middle of the economy.
The aim is to address the current and the “next generation” of owners, who have more and more social goals for a better life, says Mohr. However, there is still strong resistance to digitalization in some houses: “You don’t drill thick boards, but concrete ceilings.”
Family businesses are struggling with digital transformation
Family businesses still generate 52 percent of the gross domestic product. The 500 largest of them are still generating an impressive 1.1 trillion euros. However, among senior entrepreneurs around the age of 60, and especially among their children, there is a growing fear that the golden days may come to an end if the digital transformation is missed.
The growing pressure to innovate and compete is leading “to an increasing need for external impulses” in medium-sized companies, according to an internal policy paper by FamilienunternehmerTUM. One often limits oneself to the step-by-step further development of established processes and products, but globalization, digitization and a new knowledge society have led to a “radical socio-economic paradigm shift”. Above all: business models have changed fundamentally, “sometimes even disruptively,” it says in the paper.
50 medium-sized companies are already working closely with the non-profit UnternehmerTUM GmbH, such as Miele, Festo, Wacker Chemie and Knorr-Bremse. The number of associated family businesses is expected to increase to 500 by 2025. That would then be a tenth of the potential partners in the Federal Republic. According to the internal guidelines, they should each employ more than 150 people and turn over between 50 million and 1.2 billion euros.
The start-up center built for 35 million euros in the Schwabing district of Munich is used for projects.
(Photo: AFP / Getty Images)
You act here yourself “like a goal-oriented start-up with all the challenges that come with it,” notes Schönenberger. Small difference: Cash and start-up financing are secured. The value added and the social contribution are measured, among other things.
In return, SMEs are expected to contribute impulses, work performance (at least one day per week) and a certain budget. Anyone who does not keep promises in this regard will be politely and politely dismissed from time to time.
The “worst case” is when someone has been there for three years, but only sees the whole thing as an “innovation theater play” and in the end nothing comes of it, says Mohr. He regards his new creation as a kind of “future club” that the family company should join, also as an “innovation catalyst”: “The initiative is an appeal to all family entrepreneurs to join forces.”
Close contacts to the Technical University of Munich
Specifically, it is about knowledge transfer, curated access to talent, start-ups and technology, contacts to established companies and strategic support for innovative projects, outlines Leopold von Schlenk-Barnsdorf, program manager at FamilienunternehmerTUM. When asked whether you act like conventional consultants, you are also a “sparring partner in matters of innovation for medium-sized companies”. His family owns a specialty chemicals company in Middle Franconia, and he himself has a doctorate on the innovation of business models in family companies.
Time and again there have been attempts to decisively increase the digital beginnings of German medium-sized companies – via the right ecosystem. Max Viessmann, Co-CEO of the air conditioning and ventilation specialist of the same name, joined forces with other family businesses such as Fiege or Knauf – and launched “Maschinenraum Berlin” in 2020 in the capital.
In a former shoe factory in the Prenzlauer Berg district, almost 30 companies now share infrastructure, resources and experience in an “open platform”. Quite a few have established their digital departments here. In Bielefeld, on the other hand, the Bertelsmann Stiftung launched the start-up company Founders Foundation five years ago. Here, too, the old economy and the new economy flirt.
In comparison, the Munich Innovation Working Group has a lot of its own competence, expertise and credibility. The close contacts of UnternehmerTUM, which started in 2002, with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are paying off positively. The new spin-off FamilienunternehmerTUM works closely with TUM’s Global Center for Family Enterprise on the Heilbronn educational campus, which is financed by Lidl owner Dietrich Schwarz.
The Family Business Foundation, which is also based in Munich, acts as a partner. The “Tech Forum” jointly organized this week will be followed by other events. An advisory board is also firmly planned as a living think tank.
The team has prepared for the new task in discussions with 140 medium-sized companies, such as Maria Gleichmann-Pieroth, a member of the supervisory board of the family-owned wine trading company Pieroth. Digital change begins with the junior generation, she thinks.
Due to digitization, many medium-sized companies were currently asking themselves whether they should get involved in start-ups or hire consultants. It is important to have a “preselection”, as with FamilienunternehmerTUM, and to be able to discuss things in a “protected space”: “I feel in good hands there,” says Gleichmann-Pieroth. It is very useful when entrepreneurs like Susanne Klatten bring in their experience. The important thing now is that German industry master the next wave of digitization with such initiatives.
There are already reference projects
Among other things, Christian Mohr’s team contacted the “Alphazirkel” network, which mediates Munich start-ups with as many of the 5,000 associated family businesses as possible. And UnternehmerTUM, which has its own venture capital fund, pushed ahead with 159 company foundation projects in 2020.
There are also some reference projects from practice. The UnternehmerTUM Digital Business Lab (DBL) improved the data quality of the fully automated warehouse at the automotive supplier Hörmann. “If you have a complex problem without the right solution, then DBL is the right one,” says young partner Anna Hörmann.
It is “really great” that a hub for family businesses is being built in Munich, says Alexander Wottrich, third generation head of the Truma Group: Thanks to the cooperation, Truma’s technology hub has developed a new product for everything to do with electromobility and promoted agile work. Third prime example: In the summer of 2021, a modern marketing concept was used to make the plant drinks of the “Plantopia” brand, a spin-off of the Theo Müller group of companies, super marketable.
For such projects, either the new “Munich Urban Colab” built for 35 million euros in the Munich district of Schwabing or the UnternehmerTUM headquarters in Garching are used. “Role Models” like “Plantopia” will in future boldly announce the innovation experts from southern Germany.
And about the fact that the start-ups are less and less about the “exit”, about cashing in, but rather about the basis for a new family company that will exist for decades. It is precisely this idea that UnternehmerTUM supervisory board boss Klatten likes, and the family of Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann will be involved in the future.
She hopes “that we can help create a new awareness of entrepreneurial families who develop a spirit of innovation and prefer to think long-term,” explains Klatten: “And our founders, filled with a spirit of optimism, can learn something about the value of long-term thinking . This combination – innovation and sustainability – is the future. “
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