How sharing works for companies

People have been sharing since time immemorial, long before new business models emerged under the term "sharing economy. "These business models are largely limited to the private sphere," says Uta Jüttner, lecturer and project manager at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. For example, there are already many platforms for sharing everyday objects between private individuals - even if they are still used rather rarely in Switzerland. "In the corporate world, however, there are hardly any institutionalized processes, let alone established platforms, that would facilitate sharing among companies," Jüttner continues. This is despite the fact that sharing projects between companies would be very promising, as companies often have valuable resources such as expensive machinery and equipment that incur high costs if they sit around unused. "Many companies would have a great incentive to share certain equipment with their competitors instead of purchasing everything themselves," says the expert. Together with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts has investigated in the research project "SME Sharingmarket" how sharing could be supported in a targeted and structured way for companies.

Borrow from the company next door: Possibilities quickly exhausted

Reality proves that sharing is interesting for companies. "Our research has shown: SMEs in particular are already quite good at lending materials and objects to one another," notes Sebastian Huber, another HSLU lecturer and project collaborator. For example, resources are already frequently exchanged between small and medium-sized companies. "However, this runs quite intuitively and informally. If the craftsman needs an additional hand truck, he asks the company next door," the expert explains. But this form of sharing quickly reaches its limits, he adds. Unlike the drill or high-pressure cleaner that private individuals offer each other for sharing, machines and equipment from companies are often very expensive. "When such equipment is shared, additional questions inevitably arise, for example about liability or insurance," says Huber.

Bringing together demand and supply for sharing

For sharing to occur between two companies, one company must have a resource with spare capacity that the other company wants to use temporarily. This is where the difficulty begins: how do demand and supply find each other? "Disclosing one's own demand and the availability of resources is crucial and often the first hurdle in B2B sharing," explains Sebastian Huber. The results of the research project show: Participating companies must also develop a common organizational understanding of "sharing." Should sharing be as anonymous and demand-based as possible, or personal and partnership-based? The companies willing to share must also agree on the degree of external support from a platform or service provider. Once the resource has been identified and the form of transaction found, there are some agreements to be made - on transportation, insurance and costs. In order to then be able to evaluate the continuation of sharing as an alternative to procuring a resource, the companies involved in a sharing transaction want to evaluate the process afterwards. Huber: "For the companies, sharing does not necessarily have to result in a direct profit, but the effort must still be worthwhile in the end."

Economic, ecological and social sustainability as drivers

In the face of increasing international competitive pressure, SMEs in particular are looking for alternative forms of use to the classic "make-or-buy" approach - i.e. the choice of whether a device or tool is manufactured and owned in-house or purchased from a supplier. As with private individuals, sharing enables temporary access and use of a resource that a company cannot or does not want to own and operate itself for cost reasons. "In addition to savings, it increases the business opportunities to offer services or products that could not be offered without sharing," Huber says.
In the logistics industry as well as in larger production companies with high energy requirements, the ecological potential of sharing operational resources with a high CO2 footprint has already been identified for some time. "This creates a particular interest in sharing solutions for these companies and industries," says Uta Jüttner. The cooperation between companies, which is becoming closer through sharing, up to and including the mutual lending of employees, strengthens social cohesion and increases entrepreneurial flexibility in an increasingly uncertain business environment, emphasizes the HSLU expert.

Toolbox for companies and first SME sharing platform

To help companies participate in the sharing economy, the interdisciplinary research team of business economists, engineers, and psychologists created a process-oriented toolbox with four practical instruments:

1. Identify sharing resource potential,
2. Identify sharing organization form,
3. Sharing agreement and
4. Success measurement and partner evaluation.

The research project has also given rise to the start-up "Sharing Corp.", which will launch the first industry-independent B2B sharing platform for Swiss SMEs called KMUsharingmarket.ch this spring. The platform is intended to make the possibilities of sharing and the research results of the HSLU study available to a broad user group of companies in Switzerland. "The toolbox and sharing processes developed by HSLU and FHNW have already been validated in practice and form the basis for our platform KMUsharingmarket.ch," says Carla Kaufmann, co-founder of Sharing Corp. The company launched on March 18, 2022.

Not only the two universities of applied sciences FHNW and HSLU collaborated on the project, but also the companies Companymarket AG, KMU Digitalisierung GmbH, Virtuelle Fabrik Nordwestschweiz, Tschudin & Heid AG, Rero AG, Estech Industries AG, peka-metall AG, Kebo AG and Wir Bank Genossenschaft.

More information at: www.kmusharingmarket.ch and www.sharingcorp.ch