OPEN BOSCH AWARD FOR ROSSUM

Bosch is increasingly collaborating with leading startups for innovations. Now the supplier of technology and services is honoring the company Rossum with an Open Bosch Award in recognition of their extraordinary achievements on open innovation projects. “In a connected world, an open innovation culture is key to business success,” said the Bosch CEO, Dr. Volkmar Denner, speaking at the award ceremony. “Startups and established companies can often solve increasingly complex tasks better, faster, and more efficiently when they work together – and this also strengthens the economy.” He added that both businesses and consumers benefit from product or technology innovations being available more quickly.

This year, an award goes to Rossum, which impressed with an AI software solution that automatically processes e-mail orders into purchase orders. The award winners were chosen by a panel of judges who evaluated Bosch’s open innovation projects in the categories of mutual benefit, best practices, and business success. Bosch already has several hundred partnerships with startups; this year alone, the number of joint feasibility studies (a precursor to potential partnerships) tripled.

The importance of innovative startups to Bosch

In a technology-driven world with accelerating innovation cycles, Bosch is looking to partnerships that transcend company borders. Leading startups are playing an increasingly important part in this, because they often take on a pioneering role and have the corresponding resources such as the requisite expertise and specialists.
In these partnerships leading startups can benefit from Bosch, in regards to topics such as industrialization, market access and branding.

Recent research from Capgemini shows that the number of partnerships companies have with startups are expected to at least quadruple globally from 2020 until 2025. Leading this trend, Bosch has set up a venture client unit, Open Bosch, which coordinates startup collaborations across all business areas. For its commitment in this environment, Bosch recently received the Corporate Startup Stars Award 2020 from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). This honor goes to companies that are most active in working with startups and develop best practices in this form of open innovation.

Rossum: automated order data capture from e-mails

Bosch honored the startup Rossum for its collaboration on the automated processing of e-mail orders. This solution enables business customers without digital interfaces such as electronic data interchange (EDI) to connect to the electronic order processing systems of large companies at no extra cost. The result is less paper and fewer sources of error when manually transferring order data. Rossum’s concept is based on its own existing AI solution for invoice processing, which it further developed to handle high volumes of incoming orders. “Our partnership with Bosch has allowed us to demonstrate the flexibility of our solution when it comes to automating a wide variety of cross-company processes,” said Tomáš Gogár, Rossum CEO, about the open innovation project.

Open Bosch Award: top-class open innovation projects

The Open Bosch Award has been presented since 2019 for open innovation projects that stand out due to their excellent collaboration between startups and Bosch. The award is given by Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC), a subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH. RBVC invests in startups and incorporates them into the Bosch Group network.

Find out more about Rossum’s solution for Bosch in the video below.