Digital Business Ecosystems as a Growth Driver for Startups

Having appeared relatively recently, digital ecosystems have become an indispensable strategic tool for the development of large businesses by attracting new and retaining old consumers of digital services. The author of the article views digital business ecosystems as an opportunity for rapid economic growth for startups. The relevance of the work lies in the insufficient study in the scientific literature of the participation of startups in the activities of digital ecosystems of large businesses, as well as in their active influence on the business environment as creators of innovations. The aim of the work is to develop theoretical and practical knowledge for both startups and their counterparties, owners of digital business ecosystems. The main task is to develop management solutions for startups in terms of joining the ecosystem of a major partner. Business ecosystems in this paper act as a new direction for the implementation of the strategy of mergers and acquisitions for the owners of the considered digital business tool. The database of the study was compiled by the characteristics and features of the activity of large business ecosystems in Russia and the world in terms of activating the merger and acquisition strategy through a qualitative analysis of their non-financial statements and press releases. As a result, there are revealed the advantages and disadvantages of digital business ecosystems using this business model, there are highlighted the features of the economic development of startups, their characteristics required to enter the ecosystem of big business and carried out a SWOT analysis of the integration of a startup into a digital ecosystem, correlating all the results in a matrix (a tool for making strategic management decisions), which, depending on the orientation of the development of a startup, points to such decisions as integration (full merger), integration with intellectual property rights, dual leadership and corporate venture capital. The practical results of this work can be used by researchers of digital business ecosystems, as well as by owners of startups planning to enter large business ecosystems, and by owners of such ecosystems.