Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kapsch TrafficCom AG / Managing Director, Kapsch Group, Kapsch TrafficCom AG
Elevator Lab: Johann Strobl and Georg Kapsch about the cross-industry collaboration
Johann Strobl (Raiffeisen Bank International) and Georg Kapsch (Kapsch) talk about the highlights of Batch 3 of the Elevator Lab and the advantages of cross-industry collaboration.
About Georg Kapsch
In 2017, Georg Kapsch, as CEO of Kapsch TrafficCom and host of an event for the Federation of Austrian Industries, characterized the digital transformation as an "evolution" that has been underway for roughly 50 years, adding that only its pace has accelerated. He argued that success belongs to individuals and societies that "are able to drive change," emphasizing a need for social responsibility and cohesion. Kapsch also criticized the practice of creating and selling companies at a price he described as "far beyond the intrinsic value" of the firm, calling such an activity "not real same for a society." Also in 2017, Kapsch announced the seven winners of the Kapsch Factory1 Acceleration Program, a startup initiative. The selected companies included Quantoz Blockchain Technology, mobiag, BroadBit Batteries, i4drive, Acyclica, Fileradar, and ViNotion. Representatives of the winning startups expressed excitement about collaborating with Kapsch, citing access to the company's testing laboratories, technology, and market network.
Transcript (20 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
I love your community. I'm here after the demo day of batch three of Elevator Lab, and for the first time in the history of Elevator Lab there's been a cross industry collaboration. And this is the reason why I'm here with two very, actually very interesting two men: it's Georg Kapsch from Kapsch TrafficCom and Mr. Stovall from Raiffeisen Bank International. How satisfied are you now with the results of the batch?
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Stovall0:25
I'm very satisfied. We have seen very good ideas and I like very much the progress we made and it's very professional. We had a broad selection of topics and for us it works very well. You have some startups where you say that will be a collaboration with whom the collaboration continues? Yeah, absolutely. Throughout this and you mentioned it's the third batch we have now and we had from the very beginning always startups with which we could work and we are still working, so it's in meanwhile a long-term cooperation with some of them and also in this batch there will be a number of startups where we will further cooperate.
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Interviewer1:14
That's very interesting, Mr. Kapsch. Yeah, now you've joined in this cross industry collaboration. Why? Why?
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Georg Kapsch1:21
Well, I think that's an easy answer. Times of silos are gone because industries are very much interlinked. You always have to look for end-to-end solutions and you absolutely need to address the entire value chain. Therefore you undoubtedly need cross industry approaches.
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Interviewer1:47
So where have these collaborations been? Because you're from two very different industries. That commit?
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Georg Kapsch1:50
Well, payment is core for our industry because there are millions and millions of transactions every day in our tolling systems. And when it comes to added value in regard to the entire mobility solutions arena, there will be billions of transactions every day. And obviously transactions are also part of your business. Payment transactions is for us as well.
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Stovall2:23
I mean this is core for us, but I'm very grateful that Kapsch gave us this opportunity to cooperate because ultimately you see in these days it's more to be integrated and create the seamless experience for the customers and not to have the break between the provider of mobility and the one who can take care of payments. And I think it works very well. So for us this is a new dimension and we were keen to explore this further.
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Interviewer2:55
Which value is in cross industry collaborations in general?
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Stovall2:58
I think if you look at banking, of course since banks our existing payment is a core functionality. But if you then can integrate this with your partner because we are anyhow partners, but if you then integrate these transactions then this gives a different dimension in terms of speed, customer experience, and also creating new opportunities for our partners but also for us.
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Interviewer3:35
And also other specific industries where you have an eye on? All ready to cut?
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Stovall3:37
Yeah, we are open. I mean that's the beauty of banking is that you potentially deal and support with any industry, with every good company you want to be a partner with because everybody works with money.
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Interviewer3:53
Yeah, yeah, we are somehow yes. Thank Scott. Yeah, same for you? Like, are you open to other cross industry collaboration?
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Georg Kapsch3:59
So certainly we are used to that for decades already. And thank you very much you invited us. But we apart was for almost three decades meanwhile and you always supported us heavily. And now we have the unique opportunity not just to have a relationship from a bank to an industrial enterprise but to address customer bases accordingly and address customer bases together and jointly.
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Interviewer4:36
Now one specific thing that you've been working on, this is a collaboration with Nyack's. Um, how satisfied are you with that?
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Georg Kapsch4:42
Well, we are very much satisfied. You never know when you start collaborating with a startup what will be the outcome at the end, whether the partnership will work or not. And what we have seen till up to now, the partnership works perfectly. And you know, it's a chain between the three of us: it's Nyack's, it's RBI, and it's ourselves as Kapsch. And this is a real cross industry collaboration and this is an example for how the future will work. So and that means you will continue working with them obviously. Certainly we already agreed on further steps during the forthcoming year.
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Interviewer5:30
That's great. So like yeah, it's an example of like how you can work with startups and actually continue that also. So question to Mr. Stovall also: like this was the batch 3 of the Elevator Lab. What happened like in the batches before which impacted you? Actually you see in the startup scene and the fintech scene and the cross industry collaborations in the corporate startup collaborations, how much did you change the world?
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Stovall6:02
Yeah, I think we if you go step by step, so we started very proudly with the first one and nowadays we get more and more focused. And for us as I said before, teaming up with Kapsch is bringing us to another level of collaboration which goes beyond the isolated world of thinking dealing with fintechs. And for us as a company and as a bank, and together with Kapsch even capture even more. We saw that at the framework of this Elevator Lab, this way the cooperative fintech is a very good one. A short period of time where you have to develop and deliver a solution and it works. And this is the best environment what we can have.
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Interviewer6:49
That's actually quite impressive. Does that mean that there will be also be a batch for now?
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Stovall6:52
Absolutely, there will be one. And we are looking forward to even have it further as we are very much inspired by this collaboration beyond our own industry.
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Interviewer7:07
Great. So thank you very much for actually doing this with the startups and doing this each other like providing creative solutions together. And thank you very much for your time for the interview. The community, thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for having us. Thank you robots sorry. Thank you, thank you, thank you.