Support for employees as inventors is a distinctive characteristic of the Mittelstand, as well as Robert Bosch, says Carl-Philipp Clarenbach at Gleiss Große Schrell

Carl-Philipp Clarenbach

Germany has often been considered to be a king of hidden champions due to its innovative and quality-based Mittelstand. Hidden champions are those companies of the Mittelstand that are highly successful and known only in their market by their customers and suppliers. But Germany, of course, also has a number of large companies that are known well beyond their market, such as the German car manufacturers and worldwide automotive suppliers. For example, The Robert Bosch GmbH started in 1886 in Stuttgart with the first low voltage ignition magneto for gas engines. Today, it covers a wide variety of products, from consumer goods and energy technology to industrial technology and mobility systems and concepts. In 2019, Bosch with all its subsidiaries had 398,200 employees in 60 different countries and a turnover of €77.7 billion, clearly exceeding the limits of the Mittelstand defined above. But even though Bosch is clearly not a hidden champion nor Mittelstand according to numbers, it still considers itself to be a company of the Mittelstand by heart. Due to the chosen company type (company with limited liability) and a specific foundation that holds about 92 percent of the shares, Bosch essentially belongs to itself. Company profits flow to the foundation and can be re-invested in the company instead of satisfying stockholders. And the number of patent application shows that the company is well invested in supporting its employees to invent: in 2019, Bosch filed over 4200 patent application in Germany alone, followed by Schäffler with almost 2400 patent applications. ▪ The full version of this article on innovating with the Mittelstand  by Carl-Philipp Clarenbach at Gleiss Große Schrell appears in ‘Winning with IP: Managing high-growth intellectual property’, Novaro Publishing, January 2021. More details here.