Considering the costs of research and development, both in human resources and equipment, would it be more cost effective to develop the R&D infrastructure or to acquire startups with innovative ideas and teams with the expertise to bring those ideas to market.
Think of the case of a large brewer who can spend their R&D budget creating and testing new products in-house or acquiring a small craft brewer who can not only provide new products but will also show how their products have done in the local market. Acquiring the craft brewer would provide the desired R&D, “market research” (sales numbers), profits from those sales would offset the R&D costs, and the acquisition would also give the acquirer an extra bit of marketshare. All benefits that a traditional R&D department wouldn’t be able to provide.