Value Proposition | Startup Terminal

Collaborating closely with business units and functional units, we identify and prioritize pain points and demands, allowing us to focus our scouting activities effectively. Through rigorous scouting, evaluation, and proposal processes, we aim to mitigate these pain points and drive business acceleration through pilot initiatives. Our reputation as an innovation leader within the ecosystem is further strengthened as startups eagerly engage in co-creating and piloting their solutions with us, offering them additional strategic value in their growth journey.

For our organization

We conduct pain point workshops with the organization to identify white spots of digitalization and automation – we then screen the startup landscape to identify and evaluate the best solutions, coordinate matchmaking and define the use cases for a pilot.
We prepare and help execute startup pilots by providing relevant templates, defining KPIs, help pilot steering, identification and alignment with relevant stakeholder and defining new use-cases with the goal to scale it across countries, regions or business units and functional units.
We create synergies through regular internal interaction with business units and functional units strong relationship to the global ecosystem consisting of mentors, universities, venture capitalists and other corporate partners.
We centralize the knowledge about startup activities within the organization, make it transparent and accessible for everyone at DB SCHENKER. Itonics is the partner of choice here for the innovation platform.
The network and the knowledge in the startup environment enable us to create new services and products for existing and new customers.
We provide access to various global events and position DB SCHENKER with active participations as an innovation leader in the logistics industry.

"The startup terminal team spurs us to challenge norms, identifying digitization opportunities and introducing cutting-edge tech to ensure future-ready operations while prioritizing meaningful value-add for our employees."

Gerald Müller / Head of CL Operational Excellence

For startups

Together with the four business units (land, air, ocean and contract logistics) and the functional units we identify specific potentials to automate and digitize the products and services of the core organization. These search fields help us to prioritize certain technologies, industries, regions or business model.
Informed, fair and fast feedback and next steps. Together we identify use cases for the individual startup solutions and prepare the pilot with aligned KPIs, resources allocation and project management.
We initiate and empower pilots for startup solutions in business with the goal to scale it across countries, regions or business units and functional units: Lets speak about facts of our venture client unit: 4000+ startups in our database. 1250+ have been evaluated. 130+ pilots conducted and more than 45 in standard operations on a global scale.
Why DB SCHENKER should be your hottest lead:
- 150+ years in logistic
- 2,000+ locations
- 700,000+ customers
- Venture client unit in place
We have a dedicated budget and resources for pilots with startups. We have an empowering governance structure set up and running to identify the right stakeholder to implement and scale successful pilot solutions.
We centralize the knowledge about startup activities within the organization, make it transparent and accessible for everyone at DB SCHENKER to learn from best-practices and get better every day.
We do good work and talk about it. We are looking forward to sharing new success stories at events, workshops and online. Stay tuned.