CDO

For the Merck it’s James Kugler in the position of the Chief Digital Officer. As the Merck CDO he is the man pushing the digitalization in the company forward.

Why should Merck and the Merck CDO be involved in digitalization?

For Merck there is one main consequence coming with the digitalization – the change of your working space. In the course of this, Merck opened an innovation center in Darmstadt. In this center you can for example work silent, concentrated and alone in front of your laptop. But you have also rooms for lively discussions. They are used for the exchange with colleagues or even external startups, visionaries and companies from all around the globe.

When it comes to changes concerning Mercks products, they will focus more on the electronic market. Further they will concentrate especially on specialty chemicals for the production of semiconductors and displays.

Summarising, Merck clearly doesn’t see any kind of threat in the new mega trends coming with the digitalization. They think it’s rather a bigh chance to grow and to make profit.

Digital subsidiaries

Merck Ventures, a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, had set itself the task of providing startups with the needed support. With Merck’s help they can implement their ideas into real business projects making profit with them. Therefore they use the infrastructure and relations given by Merck KGaA.

Digital accelerator/incubator

Munya Chivasa leads the Accelerator-programm (Explanation: Accelerator) of Merck in Darmstadt since June 2015. The program itself focuses on the networking and cooperation between startups and its accompanying business segment. What means that startups in the health sector get the chance to connect with both experts and investors. Chivasa himself is especially responsible for the programmatic orientation of the accelerator in Darmstadt and also in Nairobi. Further she is in charge of its expansion.

Merck is not only active in Germany in this field, but also in Israel. There they have set up the “PMatX Incubator” which has an overall investment volume of about 20 million euros. This incubator is made for startup companies whose ideas are about next-generation electronics integrating advanced materials.

Social media

August 2016, Merck started the #catchCurious campaign. Like this they were able to reach 1.6 million visitors and 34.8 million reactions in any social media channels. So what they did was to hire some key-influencers, let them write articles about their business units healthcare, life science and performance materials and create a global Content Hub with lively exchange.

Jan

My name is Jan Puder (LinkedIn profile Jan Puder). I am the founder & CEO of the BusinessTech-Company. Me and the BusinessTech-Company want to push the digital frontier. This is the reason, why I started this website. I want to provide information about digital businesses, especially for Chief Digital Officers.

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