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Case Study

Corporate venturing with Hilti

By Salvatore Cantale, Matthew Simmons and Jesús Javier Reglero Sánchez

15 pages

June 2024

Reference: IMD-7-2520

Companies need to find a compelling growth strategy and can pursue several options. They can grow internally via organic means, they can grow through mergers and acquisitions, or they can use various venturing tools such as corporate venture capital, partnering with ventures groups, or hybrid models. All of these involve tradeoffs, and the success of any particular strategy depends on external factors as well as a firm’s organizational design. When looking at corporate venturing options, there is no “right” or “wrong” option, and strategic choices will need to be considered in light of internal and external factors. Hilti is a large established legacy company, active worldwide. It has traditionally grown its hardware business via organic growth and internal development. Over the past 10-15 years Hilti has increased its enterprise value, mainly by internal growth and by improving and optimizing financial controls and resource allocation. At the same time Hilti, began a process to use other corporate venturing strategies and to increase the share of turnover earned from software – as opposed to hardware – lines of business.

Learning Objective

Describe the different strategies used for corporate venturing in large organizations.
Evaluate when one strategy makes sense and when others will not.
Understand the organizational design implications of corporate venturing.
Evaluate how external investments are made.
Understand the meaning of product-market fit.

Keywords

Finance, General Management, Corporate Venturing, Innovation

Settings

World/global
Hilti, Materials, Construction Materials
2011-2023

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note

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