The Agrochemical and Seed Industry: Leveraging Coopetition for Breakthrough Innovation

Syngenta AG (Syngenta), the Monsanto Company (Monsanto), Bayer Crop Science (Bayer), BASF SE (BASF), Dow AgroSciences (Dow), and DuPont de Neumours, Inc. (DuPont) were the only multinational firms engaged in the discovery of new agrochemical and seed technologies. Despite their fierce rivalry, the six competitors had forged strong collaborative relationships to manage the rising challenges in developing and launching agricultural innovation. A wave of unprecedented mega mergers transformed the industry into even fewer and larger firms. Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, and Corteva became the four new leaders in agriculture. As rivalry increased and innovation became even more challenged, the four competitors were pushed to reassess how they could innovate and collaborate together. Their key challenge was to determine how they could work together to develop the next wave of innovation in agriculture without compromising their individual strengths and competitive advantages.

This case is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and graduate-level courses on strategic management, innovation management, industry analysis, and partnership strategies. Collaborations with competitors (coopetition) are becoming an important element to deal with ever-intensifying industry dynamics and higher uncertainties. Despite its benefits, the simultaneous pursuit of co-operation and competition bears several risks and challenges. Firms need to balance conflicting interests with joint objectives while dealing with the resulting tensions. Therefore, it is essential to understand how firms can implement coopetition strategies successfully. <br><br>After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><ul><li>Understand the main drivers of coopetitive relationships to create innovation, in particular in high-tech industries such as the agrochemical and seed industry.</li><li>Determine the challenges and risks of coopetitive relationships across different stages of the innovation process.</li><li>Identify and discuss trade-offs in the management and execution of coopetition projects on innovation.</li><li>Recognize regulators’ perspective on collaborative relationships between large competing firms in a concentrated industry.</li><li>Explore and analyze complementarities between competitors in the agrochemical and seed industry and derive possible collaboration opportunities to create innovation.</li><li>Reflect on the relevance of coopetition for other industries beyond the agrochemical and seed industry.</li></ul>

• coopetition
• innovation
• collaboration
• strategic management
• innovation management
• industry analysis
• partnership strategies
• challenges
• risks
• trade-offs
• regulator perspective
• regulators
• large competing firms
• agrochemical industry