Internal start‑ups as the driving force in the digitalization of traditional businesses: an interview with Jörg Hellwig, Chief Digital Officer, Lanxess

In this interview Andreas Hinterhuber and Jörg Hellwig, CDO of Lanxess, discuss the role of internal, digital start-ups as a driving force for the digital transformation of traditional businesses. Jörg Hellwig played a key role in establishing CheMondis, a digital start-up that today is the largest marketplace for chemical products in the Western world. Digital, internal start-ups allow traditional, analogue companies to understand, absorb, develop and diffuse the digital capabilities required to compete successfully in the digital future. Internal start-ups are a driving force allowing to pilot large-scale organizational transformation on a small scale. The culture of the start-up – fast communication and decision-making – is a force that potentially can positively change the culture of the established business. Jörg Hellwig stresses the importance of building a platform supporting the move from selling products to selling services or solutions. Platforms, by nature, are environments in which transactions are executed allowing the platform provider to add additional services which then can be profitably sold. The digital transformation has direct repercussions on the nature of work and required capabilities. Big data analytics capabilities are a key differentiator: Lanxess has hired dozens of data scientists to internalize capabilities in data analytics. Digital technologies strongly influence innovation processes, both in terms of limiting the number of low-value targets as well as in terms of allowing an early parametrization of desirable innovation outcomes.