GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Julien Goby is the founder of Wild is the Game, initiated 10 years ago. Passionate facilitator, his ambition from the start was to build a structure in which learning and perfecting the profession of facilitation are a priority. Among the pioneers of the profession in France, he strives to ensure that Wild is the Game remains a craftsman of the profession, well done and well used.

Julien and Gaspard Michelin, facilitator at Wild is the Game, kindly accepted to answer my questions about the art of facilitation, and their unique framework to let creative workshops of 300 participants land into an actionable workplan.

1) Could you tell us what is the value proposition of Wild is the Game? Why did you choose this uncommon name?

We help leaders who gather large groups and need to make the most from this moment.

Workshops, seminars, conventions, whatever the format, when they aspire to make this moment productive, we design and facilitate the meeting.

We facilitate decisions, communication, training, visualization.

50% of our value lies in the preparation of the meeting with our client (definition of the objectives, alignment of the stakeholders, expected outputs, etc…) upstream the d-day. The other 50% is in the quality of the delivery phase (work environment, rhythm, group flow, sequences, etc…).

Our collaborative workshops are rhythmic and fun, but they are above all intense and productive. Collaboration is a strong lever for decision, transformation and robustness.

The name Wild is the Game does not have a single underlying explanation. Let’s say that facilitating a large group of homo sapiens is a bit like PLAYING with a curious animal, “the group”, which often behaves WILDLY.

2) What recent customers assignments illustrate your know-how? (executives’ strategy, employees engagement, peer-to-peer transformation, hacking of traditional meetings…)

Our clients and their contexts are very different. But here are 3 examples:

• We recently helped the CEO of Veolia to make his Codir meeting more collaborative, and productive to work on the future strategy of the group.
• The CEO of the biotech Nanobiotix needed to be supported in his annual convention because the context was very specific for the startup, and the process had to be robust.
• With the Director of Canal+ International, it was another story: their need was to reinvent the exchange of best practices with 20 country directors of Africa.

3) You’ve developed a specific methodology to facilitate large workshops, involving 200 to 300 people: could you share with us the main steps, Scan, Focus, Act? How do you ensure that this type of ideation, involving many people, produces a decision, and an actionable plan? What is your magic wand?

It’s impossible to summerize this approach in a couple of lines. Books have been written on this methodology ! It goes back to Matt and Gael Taylor work in the 80’s. And It took thousands of workshops to figure out what works and what does not. We cherish this legacy.

Efficient workshops are like a tasty dish you want to share for a very special occasion. You need a good recipe (methodology), but you also need a good cook (designer), great ingredients (participants, inputs, leadership) and the right tools (logistics, team, and levers of facilitation). We can make great designs because there is a strong corpus of good practices so when we design, we know that we have the expertise to make it happen in real life.

Great designs are made of short iterations, as many sub-groups working in parallel as possible, and are never conclusive before the Act phase. The key is the Focus phase where participants look at the problem and play with the solutions through as many angles as possible. The Scan phase only prepares the group to be efficient during the Focus phase.

4) What is the typical time frame of your assistance? How many days for each stage: preparation / agenda design, facilitation, post-workshop conclusions?

The best context is when we can have 5 meetings to co-design the workshop with the clients, one every 7 to 10 days, before the seminar.

Then we spend one entire day on site, the day before, with the facilitation team and the sponsors to refine and get ready for D-Day. Design and preparation accounts for more than 50% of our value.

However, it’s not always possible, and we sometimes reduce the preparation to 2 to 4 meetings. It really depends on the context.

We have also designed specific formats for specific contexts that we can deliver with less than two meeting of preparation.

5) How do you handle the multilingual multicultural challenges, when participants come from various countries?

Surprinsingly, it impacts the design phase only at the margins, and when the sponsors points it out as a potential difficulty. And of course, during the delivery phase, the facilitation team must be familiar with this kind of context. But there is a lot of toxic assumptions and clichés on this matter. In a workshop, you see homo sapiens with their culture but also their own personality, their social status, their language, their professional skills, their hierarchical rank, their age, their gender, their background in the organization. And that’s what we play with.

6) How do you differentiate from the blossoming facilitation offering, for instance from the trending Design Thinking workshops?

When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem look like a nail head. We are good at helping client avoid the mistake of following trends because it is sexy. Our genuine method suggests to play with the Design Thinking/Lean Startup/ Agility tools to better embrace the company’s culture rather than be attached to one methodology.

Our collaborative process focuses on efficiency. We are the only pure player agency in terms of facilitation, and our 10 years experience allows to take advantage of large groups (20-500 people) with complex issues. We play with a clever mix of top-down, bottom-up and peer to peer.

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Intrapreneurship is an employee(s) initiative for developing new business within established firms, somehow different from the core business.

The value creation is far from an all-or-nothing game; it blossoms in many directions:

• Intrapreneurship sparks new business lines: consider that Gmail, The Facebook like button, or the Sony Playstation were unraveled by intrapreneurs;
• Concurrently, intrapreneurship fosters personal development of employees. As intrapreneur skill set covers innovation project management, team management, networking, and developing a network of allies, intrapreneurship is a school of leadership;
• It’s a global agent of change, as intrapreneurs impact many colleagues in the course of their project: it may be 300 to 500 colleagues contaminated by the startup mindest in a large company;
• The societal dimension resonates perfectly with intrapreneurship: making an impact increases even more the intrapreneur determination.

Do intrapreneurs exist without programs for intrapreneurs? Surely, and they can achieve feats! But we are strong believers they thrive when the corporation makes it a little bit easier, and shapes a supportive framework: this is why we wrote the Intrapreneurs’ Factory book.

It’s a practical guide for corporate managers and intrapreneurs, which takes you through 10 shrewd steps to build a program for intrapreneurs, and let you discover over 20 exemplary intrapreneurs stories. For each step, the book lists the key questions, and proposes accurate examples that constitute a precious source of inspiration.

As Véronique Bouchard, full professor emlyon business school, and intrapreneurship expert, puts it: it’s “A wealth of good advice, and recent use cases, by an innovation expert, and intrapreneurship practitioner! I read “The Intrapreneurs’ Factory” from beginning to end, and I know I will often open it again when confronting a specific issue or in search of an inspiring example.”

And indeed, this guide tells the story of 40 companies – AccorHotels, Airbus, Air France, Air Liquide, BNP Paribas, Bosch, Bouygues, Coca-Cola, Continental, Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn, Engie, Google, La Poste, Lufthansa IT, LVMH, makesense, Merck, French Ministry of the Armed Forces, Nexity, Nissan Europe, Orange, Red Cross France, SNCF, Société Générale, Safran, Spring Lab, Swisscom, Telefonica, Thales, Tilkee, Total, Trumpf, Vinci – which make use of intrapreneurship.

Intrapreneurship is a powerful engine which requires handy driving: sponsorship (step 3), clear deadlines, and tight intrapreneurs’ coaching (step 5), business commitment (steps 6) are the most prevalent:

• One needs to create a positive ecosystem around the intrapreneur, and turn non-expert collaborators into innovation leaders: coaching is paramoint as well as helping to weave a network of allies;
• The rythm of intrapreneurs’ project is different from that of the corporation: it’s a creative tension that disrupts the corporate culture. Lean, flexible, and fast incubation sees, in a few months, a consistent and cohesive team test, learn, iterate, and pass the gates toward product/market fit, efficiency, and reliable scaling.
• The relationsip with the business has to start upstream, and build on trust to spot the opportunity created for the business unit: henceforth intrapreneur and its partnering business unit have to prepare jointly the scale-up.

Prefacing the book, Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean and Scaling Lean, creator of Lean Canvas, points out:

“Startups fail because they struggle to find customers. Corporates fail because they stop talking to their own customers. Learning from customers is ever so important in today’s world where we are more connected to customers than ever before. Companies that outlearn their competition win. Period. So why is this difficult?

In theory, corporates should never lose against startups because they have more resources and access to customers. The reason they do is they often can’t match the agility of a startup. Speed of learning is the new unfair advantage and going fast requires a new playbook.

Nicolas’ book delivers just that. It’s full of concrete examples, recipes, and tactics from some of the top corporates in the world. It will inspire you to start or refine your intrapreneurship journey in the right direction.”

Impactful intrapreneurship is creating new business, and talent. Intrapreneurs are not product managers: they are value creation managers!

The 20 intrapreneurs stories of the book unearth multiform benefits and outcomes:

• The ability to capture customer insights, marking off the problem at stake, and swiftly test new business in this sandbox;
• The transfer of a dizzying innovation skill set, the desire to take risks, and the transformation into a startup leader, someone who is going beyond his own limits;
• The visibility for the idea owner, and a chance to convince a sponsor;
• The incorporation of social into an innovative and business-driven service;
• The adoption of digital by the traditional business;
• The birth of new business line, and other business outputs that matter differently: an internal service that can save huge amount of money, a cross-units project that facilitates transversality, a reuse of underutilized assets;
• the propagation of an entrepreneurial culture, where employees take initiative.

Give your innovation a chance to be quicker, more frugal, and closer to the business through the Intrapreneurs’ Factory!

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

I recently attended at Innov8rs conference an enticing presentation on business model
innovation: “Turning your corporate assets in new ventures and opportunities”.

It was
delivered by enthusiastic Chloé Bonnet and Pauline Pham, respectively Founding partner and CEO, and Partner & VP, at Five by Five . They kindly accepted to go into more details into its creative approach.

1) Hi, could tell us about Five by Five activities, and value proposition?

Pauline: Hi, of course. Five by Five is an innovation company, born in the French startup ecosystem. We help large companies to transform their unexplored potential and underutilised assets (such as datasets, knowhow, infrastructures, talents) into new business opportunities. If you are wondering how that translates concretely, we support companies in creating new markets, developing adjacent innovations or even optimising their existing products – in essence, diversifying their revenue stream and activities .

Chloé: We have historically worked on a wide range of subjects, but we do have some favourites: on the one hand, helping companies launch new businesses or services by exploring together potential opportunities (including adjacent innovations) and providing them support until they are brought to market; on the other hand, advising companies looking to better align their innovation strategy with their mission or purpose, including by helping them reorganise their operating model or talents (for instance, through intrapreneurship programs).
We also pride ourselves on the breadth of clients we have had the chance to work with, be they French or international, such as SNCF, MAIF, PSA, Groupama, The World Bank.

2) Five by Five claim is a powerful one: “The businesses of tomorrow already exist within yours”. It’s about transforming unexplored potential into new business opportunities, leveraging untapped assets, and developing adjacent innovation. Has it always been at the heart of your value proposition, the reason why Five by Five was created, or is it a service offering that emerged along the way, based on your experience, and practices?

Chloé: I have always fervently advocated that large companies already have internally the resources they need to be successful in the next era. In fact, I co-founded Five by Five, because I disagreed with much of the way innovation was being promoted.

• On the one hand, I rejected one-size-fits-all solutions, such as incubators or intrapreneur;
  programs when implemented while disregarding the company’s broader context.
• On the other hand, I also believed that innovation initiatives should not start with the desire to implement trendy technologies but rather the needs or goals of the company.

By focusing first on existing resources, it is possible to iterate more effectively and quickly, increasing greatly the chances of success’ of the new solution or product launched.

It would be fair to say that we have refined our approach and methodology over the years, as we have learned a great deal, both by working alongside our clients and from them. More than anything else, we have widened our perspective as to how we can help our clients. We have begun helping our clients to implement intrapreneurship programs to promote upskilling internally, and we have moved away from considering tangible assets (such as data or talents) the only way to launch adjacent businesses to greater experimentation (through our venture studio). Finally, we have been trying to play a continuous role in teaching our knowledge, and evangelising our convictions on the topic of innovation with our clients.

3) Would you share a few examples of adjacent innovations?

Chloé: I could cite many examples of adjacent innovations we’ve helped uncover, but today I will focus on three particularly striking ones.

• An interesting example is Keolis (kisio digital), which sought to capitalise on its existing trove of mobility data to create technological solutions aimed for new segments needs. The answer was Navitia.io, an open-source API giving independent developers access to shared data and services;

• Next, AccorHotels realized that while their hotels’ kitchens are incredibly well equipped, they remain unused most of the time. As a result, they came up with Yumdo.io, which allows independent chefs to use these kitchens at a lower price and in strategic locations to practice or schedule punctual events;

• Finally, we helped Engie tackle its stock optimization problem, and transform its immobilized industrial spare parts into a business opportunity. As part of the 66 Miles program, we helped one of its intrapreneur launch Energy Bay, a marketplace to give spare parts in the energy sector a second life.

4) Five by Five presents 4 stages to unfold adjacent innovations: Discover, Design, Decide, and Deploy / Prototype and Test? Would you say a few words about the activities and deliverables at each stage?

Pauline: The process you just described is key to our approach and success in unfolding
adjacent innovations by building clarity throughout the journey.

In the “Discover” phase, we seek to define the client’s business goals, their customers’
problems and needs, identify their existing resources, and assess current trends in their
market to prioritize opportunities.

In the “Design” phase, we develop potential solutions or products conjointly with the relevant stakeholders, and provide them with clear value propositions, and an effective testing protocol.

In the “Decide” phase, we discard barren ideas, usually through user or customer research, and provide our clients with all the information they need to choose which solution or product to carry forward.

Finally, in the “Deploy / Prototype and Test” phase, we create a tangible representation of the solution or product we have selected together, be that a showcase website or a functional prototype that users can actually get their hands on.

5) Once the new business opportunity is decided, how do you envision the lead of the project? By allocating the project to a project manager, in a traditional way? Or does it make sense to investigate if the project could inspire some intrapreneurs of the company, that could bring their self-determination, and entrepreneurial spirit on board? Could this be part of the activities of the Decide stage?

Chloé: As you can imagine, the way we recommend building teams varies greatly from
project to project. It depends first from whom the idea or initiative originated. If an
intrapreneur came up with the idea as part of their company’s internal program, we usually like to see this person leading the project, supporting her ourselves along the way if necessary. Furthermore, we also try to ensure that relevant company stakeholders be involved throughout our projects, relying mainly on workshops. It is often the case that they end up being the ones leading the project they helped develop, and if not, they are ideally suited to pass it on to competent colleagues.

Pauline: We recommend to our clients that they build multidisciplinary teams, combining business, product and tech people. As experience in tech companies has taught us, this is key to more creative and effective work. However, we advise against drawing a hard line between internal and external talents and often offer our clients to merge their team with our own for the duration of the project. We see our work as continuous, and ourselves more as partners than contractors.

6) Could you share a few assignments that you have conducted, unveiling entrepreneurial assets within large corporates? What is the approximate timeline? Does it contribute to the transformation of the company, and renew a sense of pride within the company?

Pauline: I think it is perhaps best to walk you through two of our most recent assignments in details.

The first one is MAIF, a highly-respected French insurer. They came to us wanting to capitalise on its reputation for impeccable customer service among B2C clients to enter the B2B market, and more specifically to design solutions for scaleups.

The entire process lasted over the course of several weeks, as it involved several separate steps:

• firstly, a customer segment exploration phase, lasting about two weeks;
• secondly, a two-day workshop designed to elaborate pertinent use cases and identify their clear value proposition;
• thirdly, a user-research phase to validate our customer and market hypotheses;
• and finally, a restitution and recommendation session.

The purpose of this methodology was to develop potential new solutions conjointly with MAIF as opposed to merely giving them our own recommendations. It ensures that they are working on solutions that they actually care about, and gain a sense of ownership in the process.

Furthermore, MAIF greatly appreciated the emphasis we put on surveying potential partners and customers early on, in contrast with the more abstract approach favored by traditional consulting companies. More broadly, the stakeholders with whom we had the pleasure to work, shared with us their pride in having learned proper iteration methods and the confidence it has given to carry outfuture projects.

Chloé: The second one is PSA, one of the largest French car manufacturers. Having observed growing interest for car subscription services in the United States and the United Kingdom, they believed there could be a market in France for this kind of product. We have been developing together a minimum viable product (MVP), helping them with prototyping, user testing, and devising a coherent go-to-market strategy.

This project is still ongoing and is taking place over the course of several months, with
missions being divided among three complementary teams: product and design; marketing; technical.

• The product and design team spent around two weeks designing a landing page and subsequently monitoring analytics. They are now refining and finishing the prototype, which will last approximately a month and a half;
• The marketing team spent around two months ensuring that the product had a market, followed by a two and a half months phase focusing on SEO and marketing testing, to identify early-adopters. It is now focusing on elaborating the product’s overall marketing strategy, a phase which will last approximately two months;
• Finally, the tech team spent around two weeks on building the landing page and analyse the IT assets over the course of the whole project.

It is worth stressing how critical skills hybridization was for the project’s success : PSA
brought its car-making and operational excellence and Five by Five its solutions design and testing knowledge.

7) What are the next challenges for Five by Five?

Pauline: One of our main challenges is an ongoing one – continuing to pass on our knowledge and methodologies to our clients. We aim for them to be self-reliant after our work with them is done, as opposed to being continuously dependent in the foreseeable future. More broadly, at the heart of Five by Five is the desire to promote a different culture of innovation, healthier and more practical, in the French context. It is more than just words to us, we have implemented practical ways to measure our impact, and check whether we have reached our objectives and not exclusively whether the client is satisfied.

While we are happy to see that certain industries have made great progress towards being more innovative and open, others still have a long way to go. We are excited at the prospect of working with new clients outside of our traditional fields of expertise (aka mobility and financial services).

Chloé: We are also very interested in current developments to the definition of private
companies’ and their efforts towards being more sustainable. We welcomed with open arms the government’s initiative to create the legal status of “purpose company”, allowing organisations who so chose to legally declare that they seek to have a greater impact than merely maximising profits. We look forward to helping our clients transition toward this new kind of models. Using our tried-and-tested methodologies, we intend to support them in elaborating new ways of innovating, which are crucial to developing purpose-driven businesses. Not only will this approach contribute to increasing their impact, but so will it to ours as well.

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

What are the Innovation Barcamps for Entrepreneurs?

It is the idea to give the codes to young people from underprivileged districts, who want to start an innovation project. During one day, project owners will dig in into their idea, with the help of innovation coachs, and other participants: you come with an idea, and you get back with a project, and the support of an innovation community!

3 partners are essential to the success of these Barcamps:

1. NQT (Nos Quartiers ont des Talents = Our Talents have Talents is an association that matches young job seekers with tutors in corporations; tutors coach them along their job search) and renowned associations linked to entrepreneurship in underprivileged areas, Les Déterminés (= Engaged People), Time2start, help us to spread the news, and source participants;
2. Innovation Spaces from large companies host the event: 1st edition took place at Orange, 2nd at Pernod Ricard, 3rd at Renault, 4th at MAIF Start-up Club, and next one is planned at Banque Postale Platform 58, on September 17th; it shows the interest of large companies for this form of entrepreneurship;
3. And last but not least, a dozen of the best innovation coaches in Paris give one day of their time, pro bono, to facilitate the Barcamp with me, and support the participants in fulfilling the innovation canvas on their project (value proposition canvas, business model canvas, and pitch canvas).

This mix of generous partners, and the young participants give to these Barcamps a special flavour, both creative and cooperative. Below are the videos of the former barcamps which give an idea of these enthousistic moments:

Innovation Barcamp for Young Suburban Entrepreneurs at Orange – épisode 1

Innovation Barcamp for Young Suburban Entrepreneurs at Pernod-Ricard – épisode 2

Innovation Barcamp for Young Suburban Entrepreneurs at Renault – épisode 3

Innovation Barcamp for Young Suburban Entrepreneurs at MAIF Startup Club – épisode 4

Latest Barcamp in March 2019 at MAIF Start-Up Club was particularly joyful, and productive:

Naturally, the real success cornerstone is the commitment of the young participants.

Some project owners are not only talented, but also very resilient: one success story is the one from Mohammad Asim Maqbool and Alexis Fartek, the creators of Streetyfood,: they participated at the first Barcamp, then pitched their project on the Orange booth at Vivatech 2017, and finally won the Startup Suburban Week-End contest, and an incubation at Station F Fighters Program.                                                                    

Another success story is the one of LocknTouch, and Zora Younsi, who kindly accepted to answer our questions.

As shown in the pictures below, she also took some time to come back at the latest Barcamp to share her experience with the new participants: thank you so much Zora for this!

1) How did you learn about the Entrepreneurs Barcamp by Orange ? Was it through the NQT network?

I learnt about the Entrepreneurs Barcamp by Orange through the NQT network. They communicate about the event, and I asked to participate.

2) You took part to the first barcamp at Orange location in Bagnolet, in May 2017: how was it organized, what project did you present, and what was the state of the project?

It was organized during a full day :

• The morning, we met participants and the team of Orange, during a breakfast. Nicolas described us the organization of the Barcamp. The first time was about personas, and design thinking : to fall in love with the problem to resolve it;
• Each project leaders pitched their project in one minute. The participants and the coach expert (expert in design, marketing …) chose a project, and joined it to help it during the  brainstorming, and the design thinking method;
• During the lunch, some partners explained their entrepreneurs careers, or what their structure could bring if we want to launch our business;
• The afternoon each team worked on the business model canvas, and about how to win money with the solution each team has chosen.

During this day, I presented Lock’n’Touch, a solution to prevent from thefts of bags . my project was at the state of idea. I worked on the business model.

3) What did you learn, and what was the impact on your project?

I discovered the importance of the design thinking method: to understand real pains and problems, we have to be of course creative but we have to be empathic .

I learned the collective intelligence : we can prototype in one day a solution with a complementary team. Everyone has an expertise, and there is only good idea.

The Orange Barcamp was the opportunity to improve my solution, my business model, and I decided to bring my project as a CEO and, to test it for the business.

4) What was the next step following the Barcamp (Vivatech)? How did you prepare the event? What was the benefit for you?

Following the Barcamp by Orange, I pitched during 3 min Lock’n’Touch at Vivatech on the Orange Stand the Thursday, and I get the opportunity to present Lock’N’Touch, during 20 min on the LVMH Stand at Vivatech.

I prepared the event with Orange: how to make a pitch deck, what I can share about my business, and how to pitch during 3 min.

It was a strong benefit because I understood the Why, and the Value of a solution. When you develop your project, you have to be clear for the others, and they have to understand simply the problem, how you resolve it, and our value proposition. Why our solution and not an other .

I met during the Barcamp my future associate too !!

4) Following the Barcamp and Vivatech, you applied for Station F entrepreneurs programs: can you tell us which programs, and how the Barcamp experience helped you to improve your application?

 The same year of the Barcam and Vivatech, I participated to a Startup Wekk End. And I Applied for the Fighters program @ Station F.

The Barcamp experience helped me to adjust my business, my pitch, my presentation. And I talked about this professional experience when I Applied.

And when I want to test for example a landing page, I have design thinking in mind…

5) What is the current state of your project, and what are the next challenges? How can we help you?

Today, I have a team to develop the project.  We have prototyped several times Lock’n’Touch. We worked with UI and UX designer to optimize the customer’s experience.

The next challenges are to sign strong contracts.

We are on a business approach . You could help me by present me to your network, and to help me on my business approach (contracts, pitch etc, how to target and how to approach the right person to make business) .

6) A final word that you would like to share with our readers, and with the next Barcamp participant, September 17th at Banque Postale Incubator, M58 platform?

Don’t be afraid of failure…

To succeed is great, but TEST and GET STARTED, it’s the beginning of everything…

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Amaury Godron is General Manager of OBRATORI, L’OCCITANE Innovation Lab, and Managing Partner of LOG Investment, L’OCCITANE Venture Fund.

There are some Startups Studios on the market, but OBRATORI differs from them as being a Corporate Startups Studio (more similar to Kamet by Axa): it was created by L’OCCITANE Group to let external startups soar out of its incubation. OBRATORI offers incubation and investment to early-stage projects that it sources continuously in wellbeing, cosmetics, retail, packaging, and sustainable development industries.

With the help of Julie Géret Head of Communication & Events at OBRATORI, they explain how this startups factory works.

1) Hi Amaury, could you tell us how the original idea of a Startup Studio popped-up at L’OCCITANE Group?

The idea has been insufflated by Reinold Geiger, L’OCCITANE Group Chairman & CEO, and his willing to always carry further the values of entrepreneurship and team spirit. As he once said, he would have much appreciated the help of others, during his early entrepreneurship career.

2) What is the value proposition of OBRATORI to early-stage ventures? As an incubator, what services do you offer, and as a fund, what seed investment are you familiar with?

As an incubator, we offer fully equipped labs (L2 Cell Lab, and MIT Fab Lab), co-working space, dedicated mentorship, and the support of OBRATORI expert’s team, corporates and partners, inspiring peers, and a community of successful and diverse founders.

As an investing partner, we’d like to keep minority stakes, never more than 25% of the startup value, but rather an average around 10%.  The idea is to become long term’ partners, and not to create a subsidiary of the L’OCCITANE Group, startups have no obligation to work with the L’OCCITANE Group.

• Can a startup choose either 1 of the 2 offerings?

It is essential to us, to provide financial support to create a lasting link, and support for startuppers, so we chose to offer a global approach, and a tailored support for each of them.

• What is the specific advantage of your localization at CISAM Marseille?

CISAM stands for « Cité de l’Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille. The CISAM is born out of the skills and ambitions of the largest French- speaking university in the world, the largest metropolis in France, and two multinationals: CMA CGM and L’OCCITANE Group. With a shared desire to develop scientific culture and innovation in order to benefit economic growth, and as a genuine platform for innovation, the CISAM is a place for emulation, and creation, distinguished by an offer, and a shared approach to startups, companies, researchers, students. It brings together all the resources needed to stimulate innovative approaches and streamline the process, in a single location.

It is a real promise of dynamism and fruitful exchanges for the startups!

• When is the next application season?

We have a different approach from other incubators, we chose not to have programs or applications’ sessions. Our goal is that entrepreneurs move to our OBRATORI offices in Marseille for 23 months approx. and learn how to turn their idea into tangible solutions/ products, that will impact people’s live globally. It takes quality time to identify and find the good moment to partner, therefore innovative projects integrate OBRATORI as they go.

3) Are you targeting early-stage ventures that come with a technological project and a team, or are you more in the process of elaborating internally the ideas, and then looking for entrepreneurs to staff them, like a traditional Startup Studio?

We identified in Marseille area more than 18 laboratories and potential synergies with Aix-Marseille University‘s ecosystem, allowing us finding innovative technologies and ideas. We support entrepreneurs to reinforce their staff or create from scratch a leading team.

4) How many projects are you currently handling (is 15 the target?), and can you share a few examples (solar filter encapsulation?)?

Since our launch in October 2018, we have welcomed 5 startups all in different fields. From solar filter encapsulation, to alga-based food supplement for the latest, going by telemedicine solutions to fight against medical desertification or tailor-made essential oil compositions.

We haven’t set a precized target of the projects’ number to support. We have a capacity of 108 workstations, which represents around 20 early stage startups. Startups stay at OBRATORI’s for 23 month on-site co-working time, and a long-term support. As you can see, we’ve yet made the choice to emphasize quality rather than quantity.

5) Why is it natural to link Corporate Venture with Corporate Incubation / Startups Studios? What are the synergies?

Venture capital funds provide a vital help to startups’ development, which by definition is complementary to that of incubators. That’s where is the good and fruitful synergy between Corporate Venture with Corporate incubation can possibly guarantee a vital, and fertile economic environment, in which entrepreneurial ideas can grow easily and with a trouble- free availability of financial, material and immaterial help at each and every development stage, hence ensuring a maximization of startups’ value creation.

6) What capacity of investment do you have? What is the ROI expected? Is it purely financial, or shall OBRATORI contribute in some way to L’OCCITANE’s innovation?

We invest up to 25% of the startup value, our ROI would obviously be financial, like a virtuous circle it’ll allow us to reinvest in other nuggets, but the L’OCCITANE Group would as well be in leveraging our startups in its ecosystem.

7) What are your next challenges?

We have just started our operations, and we are wisely building our portfolio. And it is already a lot of a challenge, don’t you think?

Image credits: OBRATORI, L’OCCITANE Innovation Lab, and LOG Investment, L’OCCITANE Venture Fund

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Ewa Kopczynska is a Partner and co-founder at E&D Knowledge Consulting, a consulting company specialized in knowledge management, innovation research, and change in innovation and technology. International project manager, and researcher in innovation and entrepreneurship fields, she’s a native from Poland, she works in Portugal, and basically, she’s bold in every attempt she does! I thought that her journey of an innovation globetrotter would be an amazing story to share!

1) Hi Ewa, thank you for sharing your experience with us! What was the trigger that brought you from Poland to Portugal? Had you already in mind to develop a consulting practice in innovation management?

The pleasure is all mine, thank you for having me.

The decision to go to Portugal was actually a bit accidental… At 23, I was finishing my master degree and working at General Electrics. I was on a great start for managerial track, when one of my personal mentors advised me to make sure I choose a long term professional path that will be in accordance with my long term objectives, rather than the one that was dictated by the social expectations or local job market opportunities. I had already four year experience in different sectors and positions, and fortunately was reasonable … and adventurous enough to listen to the advice. I actually take the step back, and give myself the chance to find my own path rather then follow the dream path across corporate leader that was the holly grail of my generation. It was a bit a lip of faith on my side.

So there I am informing my bosses that, even though I actually like my job, I am leaving it to undertake another degree abroad. I was always very attached to Poland and immigration never crossed my mind before, that supposed to be an adventure, opportunity to learn in new environment and get the time and space to learn also more about myself and clarify what I really want to achieve professionally in my life.

The specific choice of Portugal was really just dictated by the fact that I had very limited knowledge about the country and culture. I was already familiar with the majority of European countries and I was looking for something new and unique. I was very excited to learn about Portugal being so distant from my home land – Poland.

I definitely didn’t think about my own company at the time…at least not consciously… and even less, of having it in Portugal. But I was always passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship, the way they can help us do what used to be considered impossible and how it can make a difference…and even more how the lack of openness for innovation can be destructive. The history of Lodz, the city I grew up in, taught me a lot about that, from the good to the worst examples…

2) When you first came to Portugal, what struck you in the Portuguese way of innovating? What is different there from other European countries that you know?

Portugal is full of contradictions. It is a country where a high attachment to tradition blends strongly with technological skills and resourcefulness. However, the motivation to provide innovation is not usually dictated by the desire to be first, to be better than others, to be innovative for the sake of innovation, like in some cultures where innovation is just trendy. Portuguese people love to enjoy life. Therefore, innovative solutions are commonly the result of looking to simplify tasks, to provide highly user friendly solutions that just make life easier and allows you to enjoy it more.

I.e. while I travel the world, and see many new solutions in bank systems, I still find the Portuguese ATM system that allows you to manage majority of your financial needs from the level of ATM amazing. In Portugal for years you can just use almost any ATM to deal with your bills or pay your taxes or online shopping without having a credit card, charge your phone or just access your account numbers….. That’s just one of the examples of innovation looking to make life of general population easier, and this one really does. It is just surprising that the solution is not generally adopted across Europe…

…but that just underlines the general problem of the country. Advanced technical knowledge is there, unfortunately the management knowledge is not sufficient to effectively capitalise on it….

However, Portugal is really changing. Since I moved there seven years ago people became more interested and involved in entrepreneurship and innovation. You can also see a big change of the culture. Portuguese actually got more open to try new things. Unfortunately, there is a common ignorance what innovation actually is. Even in our business environment we often need to explain that being an innovation consultant doesn’t actually mean that we write applications for public R&D funding for our customers. Sadly, I learnt that it is actually what almost all companies advertising as innovation consultants do in Portugal.

3) How did you start the business, who were your first customers, and what are the next steps that you have in mind for E&D consulting practice in innovation management?

I always knew that I will start my own company one day. Since childhood I assisted my mom in running her own business. Thanks to it, I knew the good and bad sides of being an entrepreneur, had a chance to observe different entrepreneurial patterns around me, and I knew what it takes to run a business. I also saw first-hand how easily companies fail. Already as a child I had an example of a spectacular failure of a company in my family due to bad financial management, just due to lack of cash flow monitoring. Along the time with every economic downturn I observed a number of companies in our environment fail due to the lack of management skills. So I knew that to be successful you need to know not only the customer needs, and how to meet them, but also how to keep your numbers in place, and that you need multidisciplinary knowledge in the first place … and more – the passion that helps you going when situation seems helpless. So that is what I knew I needed to get before getting into entrepreneurship. And that’s what I gathered over the years across different educational experiences, working across industries, different organisations, and ultimately countries.

The fact of opening our company at the specific moment was however another ‘in the heat of the moment’ decision. At the end of 2016 I was very frustrated with my job. I couldn’t stand the shortsighted thinking, bureaucracy, lack of clear strategy and constant office politics… So I quit. I was just about to leave to Poland for half a year when,during a goodbye lunch with my colleague Daniela, after discussing the reasons for my departure she just mentioned ‘you remember when we were joking we should open our own company? What do you think about it?’. As a few of international partners have already asked me during my few last weeks, why I don’t start doing things on my own, my answer was quick. ‘There is one problem …I am leaving in 2 days and there are some opportunities we can explore while I am in Poland that can’t wait, if we are serious. Are we stubborn enough to do it in 2 days?’ And of course we were stubborn enough!

First customer, was actually a total surprise. We were asked to design innovative methodology for supporting inclusive sport for Portuguese Winter Sports association. Skiing is one of my biggest passions, so I was recommended as a person that can incorporate knowledge of projects, and innovation, and passion for winter sports.

The next steps… After the first years when we were testing the market, which is at very initial stage of understanding the innovation management, we finally are looking to increase our focus on innovation, as we were previously working on broad scope of management topics. We will soon reach the place when we have sufficient portfolio of products purely focused on innovation and increased awareness of our business environment to do so. Further, we are to become a certified training organization to meet some specific needs of our customers. We also started some discussions with a person that we would see in our company to lead social innovation department, as we see big needs in the area and lack of competent people. The plans are as always ambitious, but as you know in innovation environment everything may change extremely fast, so we are constantly adjusting our plans to the market, and our customer needs. What is constant though with us is that we always focus on increasing our internal competences, and looking for new challenges.

4) Why did you decide to stay?

In Portugal?…. well, definitely the people………They are sometimes difficult to manage, but I can’t underline enough how amazing it feels to leave in a place that people care about others. In most cases, even if we struggle to work together, it doesn’t stop us from being great friends at the end of the day. Being treated in the first place as a human being, rather than as a holder of professional category is just priceless for me.

5) What are the challenges that Portugal is facing in term of innovation, and what is their on-going plan to make a foray in innovation and tech?

The biggest challenges are mostly related with building effective support environment and knowledge required for ensuring continuance of innovation, and the lack of understanding of innovation. Firstly, Portugal created a broad net of support structures for entrepreneurship and innovation, but their effectiveness is really limited due to the lack of knowledge based long term strategy. The organisations often lack staff with actual knowledge in the area or are just understaffed in that scope, focusing more on administrative workers. To add to that, the collaboration between business and universities in innovation scope is really rare. Portuguese higher education system where publications are main focus of professors’ evaluation from one side, and exclusivity conditions in professors contracts excluding them from gathering practical market experience, generates a big gap between business and academia. There is a big innovation potential being wasted. That in a small country as Portugal having a very big number of universities, and a high number of SME lacking R&D capacities seems really unreasonable.

From the other side, as not only in Portugal, many people mix innovation with technology. It is difficult to discuss innovation with i.e. in agricultural sector if they see only high tech industry under the innovation label.

But some very innovative companies really struggle with the lack of association of Portugal with innovation abroad. We had a case when a company lost a huge contract in Germany just because they didn’t trust in Portuguese innovation. At the end, the chosen by Germans runner up didn’t meet their expectations after all, and they finally reconsidered. But it just shows that the lack of innovation branding of Portugal is a problem.

What is the plan? In practice the effective measures supporting innovation are in Portugal rather regional then global.

There are some great local examples of measures to support innovation at local level, but currently it is just a beginning for Portugal in creating the regional innovation systems. You can see there are different methodologies being tested and finally some pieces are starting to work, in some places faster than in others.

The general strength of Portugal is the IT sector. They have very good IT higher education, and a big number of graduates in the field. Together with very affordable wages and estates, it attracts foreign investments in the area. Especially Fin Tech became very strong, slowly making Lisbon and Porto the IT locations for many multinationals. There are even those that see a big growth opportunity in Brexit, as Portugal became a cheap alternative for the London based financial services ….

There are also great examples of measures increasing the visibility of Portugal on the innovation and entrepreneurship map of the World. Among others, I believe that bringing WebSummit to Lisbon contributed a lot here. Its impact is even broader. It really made Portuguese people excited about innovation and entrepreneurship. Coverage in media of the event can be compared to the football World Cup … and in Portugal, as you can imagine, this is huge. I was very surprised how meaningful that event is for the Portuguese community across the whole country.

6) Can you share an example of E&D Consulting fostering cooperation on regional and international level in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation and smart development?

Sure…that is for me the best part of doing what we do. Of course we do it with every consultancy. Either it is a micro-company or a big public organisation, by helping them to improve and grow, we contribute to their success, and the general innovativeness and development. But for me it is not only about the business. I believe that with knowledge and talent there is a level of responsibility to put it into good use, so we try to do so. Every year we try to develop at least one collaborative project that could help solve issues at regional and international level. That gives us the opportunity to provide our expertise to groups that don’t usually have access to it. We started that with invitation from our Polish partner to join their efforts in building a solution to job market skills mismatch within Engage project within Eramus+ program.

Then based on some feedback from our business environment we designed the IN_DIGIT2EU project to build an e-learning solution for SME that wish to internationalise but lack the knowledge and skills to do so or just want to verify what their SME needs to improve to increase their chance of success on international level…

This year I finally found a moment to wright a project that would support teaching innovation basics to low-skilled adults, to make innovation more inclusive. I really hope to start it in the fall this year.

As you can see we work in those projects on a broad scope of issues. It allows us to work with groups that are often out of the scope of our activity. It provides us not only with opportunities to contribute our expertise, but also to learn, and exchange knowledge and different visions. Then, we can share it with our customers to help them improve and grow.

7) Why is it an asset in innovation to mix different cultures like you do? How does it benefit to the consulting projects that you complete at international scale?

Absorbing different cultures makes you think differently. Most of people see reality through the lens of a specific culture they grew up in. They interpret events, behaviors, and generate ideas based on some assumptions coming from their experience and environment.  When you move to a place with a distant culture or live with people representing different cultural backgrounds, you learn that even basic assumptions or references that seemed for you ‘engraved in stone’ can be completely invalid outside of your country. That really helps you to become more innovative, giving you much broader perspective and open your eyes to new possibilities. But, even more importantly, it helps you to deal better with people.

Across countries we have different way of expressing ourselves, communicate as well as deal with our fears and difficulties. So first of all multicultural experience helps you contextualize and translate the messages that people communicate. And that is not only coming from national perspective. Also across professional groups, industries or even generations … Secondly, it also makes you more emphatic and perceptive which is very important in management and especially in consultancy. Often to understand problems or needs, you must understand not even what people say, but exactly what they don’t want to say.

Thirdly, it may position you better to encourage people involvement in innovation. Especially, coming from the culture where failure was not an acceptable option, I understand that people can have strong reaction in face of fear and often inconsistent with their day-to-day behavior. That cultural mix I got embedded in, allowed me to be much more patient, and supportive when people start behaving irrationally. It helps managing crisis situation, and support people to get prepared and get through the periods of high uncertainty level which is a daily bread in the world of innovation.

And in international project it especially helps you not to treat too seriously misunderstandings, conflicts or problems that appear… it helps you to first make sure that there is really a serious problem. Usually when you actually look closer at common issues in international projects they often come from language difficulties, wrong interpretations of statements or intentions and similar misunderstandings. So often after repeatedly making people clarify what they meant, we discover that they were actually trying express similar points of view…

The benefits from multicultural experience are for my work really broad, but I think that knowledge of different culture is extremely important for many different aspects of our live. Because of that, I love to teach the multicultural management. I think it is one of the ‘must have’ skills in the modern world. But there is no better way to reach it, but by exposing yourself, and embedding in external culture.

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Vincent Maret is corporate director Open Innovation at Bouygues Corp. His goal is to drive competitiveness through innovation, leveraging agile methods, fostering open innovation programs, and supporting Bouygues business units in their transformation.

Vincent has an extensive experience in marketing, strategy, innovation, project management, telecom and information technologies; as Marketing Manager; deputy R&D director with Bouygues Telecom and previously as a Project Executive with IBM Global Services. Vincent is very familiar with international environments. He was the founder and CEO of the US Office of Bouygues Telecom, in the Silicon Valley, since renamed winnovation and serving the whole Group.

How do you instill innovation culture, and federate innovation initiatives in such a huge company? Bouygues Corp. includes Bouygues Construction -building, civil works, energy and services-, Bouygues Immobilier -property- and Colas -roads-, Bouygues Telecom and TF1 media TV channel. That’s’ some of the questions we discussed with Vincent.

1) Hi Vincent, you’ve been heading open innovation across the Bouygues Group, and with the ecosystem (startups, corporations, academia,…) for 5 years: what summary would you make of the work completed, and the results achieved? What seems to you the most impactful, and what are the things that you would do differently?

Open Innovation has become a buzz world, and I have learned to be wary of those! You are right not to restrict open innovation to the interaction between startups and corporates. I picture it more as an ecosystem working like a real team.

That’s why I like to define open innovation with a metaphor. Big corporates, like supertankers had a tendency to navigate alone. In a changing environment, where speedboats can come, and hit you under the flotation line with crude implements, it is better to move from a supertanker to a fleet of boats formation in order to achieve your goals. This is my metaphor for open innovation. The efficient fleet is made of vessels of various sizes, shapes and pavilions, sharing a common goal, a purpose.

As you mentioned in your introduction, the Bouygues group itself consists of 5 business units each of which have their own innovation teams. In the past years, the open innovation approach has been structured to be as close as possible to our clients and end-users.

That is why each of our BU has an open innovation team. If we take the example of interaction with startups, each BU will define priorities, scout relevant startups, and finance them when necessary. Each of them has set up their own fund for the purpose of acquiring minority stakes in start-ups when they do so.

Editors’ note: for instance “Minut’start’up”, a 1′ startup pitch with a mentor of Bouygues Construction in front of  the BU departments, or Matching-Up, a request for call for startups, were set-up by the BU.

On the opposite, some actions make more sense to be mutualized such as due diligence prior to investment or following the startups after investment. That is why Bouygues has created at corporate level, Bouygues Development, to perform those activities.

Additionally some partnership make more sense to be handled transversely. This is the case of our participation in the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technologies) ILP (industrial liaison program) which benefits to all our BUs. This adds also additional value for our partners who like to emphasize the complementarities of our BUs. As an example, Bouygues was chosen by MIT to host its 2018 Paris Symposium on “Human surrounded by technologies, or human at the center of our technologies?”. A great way for the Group and our clients to interact as an ecosystem.

2) The e-Lab open innovation team acts also as an internal business transformation team helping business units identify and deploy new offers, strategic marketing plans or transformation plans. Could you tell us more about your organization, and share some examples of new offerings completed? What are your golden rules to sell your services internally, and coach successful transformations?

A famous description of innovation separates incremental innovation (akin to continuous improvement), and disruptive innovation. Corporates such as Bouygues have a huge history of practicing the former.

It is necessary for any company to constantly improve their processes, reduce their costs, and shorten their delays to improve customer satisfaction.

Yet it is not sufficient in a world where new entrants can easily shake new markets (oftentimes leveraging digital or new technologies), and potentially reshape them altogether. This has famously happened with airlines, hotels, taxis …

The new entrants have disrupted the market with the help of new technology but more importantly with an approach where alleviating customers’ pains plays a central role.

This approach of disruptive innovation was less natural to big corporations. At e-Lab, we have first made ourselves familiar with best of class methods to cope with this: agile methods, design thinking, BMC (business model canvas); C/K method …

Then, we have realized that they could help our BUs  implement major changes. A few years ago we helped Bouygues Bâtiment Nord Est – a subsidiary of Bouygues Construction in the North and East of France- with their “Imagine 2021” project.

More recently we worked with the sales forces from Colas or Bouygues Construction on adjusting offers to changing clients expectations.

The key to our approach is very simple: move from a technology/solution push approach to a usage pull approach.

3) How do you structure your open innovation scouting? Do you screen innovative players related to mega-trend or do you spot specific startups / academics that can solve problems expressed by the business units?

As previously mentioned with my metaphor, the fleet of boat has to share a purpose, a common vision to make its action impactful. That is why, in 2017, when preparing the first integrated report of the Bouygues Group, we have precisely started from the megatrends (those trends who are both worldwide and extremely impacting).

Among the 15-20 identified by the consulting companies and research institutes, the Bouygues group has pinpointed four macrotrends that have a significant impact on its activities and business models: population growth and urbanization; climate change; digital and technological revolution; changing user behavior.

These four trends provide us with a compass to identify opportunities common to the Group.

In parallel, each BU define their own priorities corresponding to their specific environments and needs.

Open innovation scouting hence comes from the combination of a local and global approach.

4) Your open innovation team spreads innovation methodologies within Bouygues: user centric design, agile, business model canvas, value quadrant, … What is your vector of propagation: collective training session, or on-boarding an innovation coach into a project?

Our business transformation missions are the primary vectors since one of their goals, in addition to solving the problem at hand, is to equip the teams with those methods so that they can replicate them internally, and use them in other instances.

We also teach a monthly seminar “innovate toward the contributive company” at IMB (Institute of Management Bouygues), a corporate university for group executives; and deploy it occasionally at BU’s requests.

Change is not only for the others, but for yourself!

5) You’ve created an intrapreneurship program in 2016, “Innovate like a startup”: what are the selection (thematic challenges?), and incubation processes? what are the main figures? how long is the incubation of your innovative projects, and how do we keep a rapid pace during this period? Could you share some emblematic intrapreneurs projects?

“Innovate like a start-up” (ICS) is an intrapreneurship program to help the Group reinvent its business activities. The idea is to draw on the creativity of our employees to invent and roll out solutions that will meet the great challenges of the 21st century (including obvisouly, the four megatrends liste above).

Since 2016, the “Innovate like a start-up” program yearly brings together a “tribe” of around 50 employees from all the Group’s business segments.

Their task is to invent new and tangible solutions to make urban environments more sustainable and more pleasant to live in.

Together they design, prototype and test actual and feasible solutions by drawing on the potential generated by the synergies between all the Group’s business segments. Teams are subgroups of the tribe.

Via a compact and dynamic program over 3-4 months, participants acquire the methods and tools for designing nimble and frugal business models in order to turn ideas into solutions.

At the end of the cycle, the multi-disciplinary teams defend their projects before the Group’s “Action Tank”, a jury comprised of decision-makers from all the Group’s business activities. Selection gates are at the end of ideation (to enter the maturation phase); then at the end of the maturation phase (to enter the acceleration phase).

Each successful project is assigned from the first GO, a sponsor (member ot the action tank) and a coach from the ICS team.

Each year, the ICS team selects an innovation theme for the participants. The first season was based on the theme of “Positive Economy Building”. The second season was labeled “Rethink the City”. This aimed to propose solutions to address the problems affecting urban environments with solutions based on the production and re-use of local resources, the reduction of disturbances through changes in use… The third season was on the theme of the productive city, with the aim of finding solutions to make cities more self-sufficient and resilient.

A challenge open to all Bouygues’ employees was also managed through our internal social network in 2018.

To sum up, for ICS|the Tribe, there is a theme for each season; for the ICS| the challenge employees brought in their own ideas.

More than forty projects have emerged from the program. 8 of them are being supported by the action tank, several of which being close to or in commercial phase. Among them “BHEP” the building concept combining usage optimization; productivity gains through well being; convertibility and reversibility; valorization of local physical flows has received the “Solar Impulse” label awarded by the solar impulse foundation.

6) What are your next challenges?

We have so many!

We need to strengthen and scale the deployment of our transformation methods; make sure that intrapreneurship programs deliver value and prepare the Group for the many mutations ahead of us combining new technologies, new business models for improved user experience.

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GUEST POST from Nicolas Bry — originally published on Innovation Excellence.

Jerôme Fauquembergue, Damien Tourrette, and Bastien Giner are the 3 musketeers I talked with, to understand the blossoming innovation of Cdiscount, the French leader for e-commerce, and subsidiary of Casino retail group.

They’ve shared some fruitful insights on how innovation unfolds at Cdiscount over intrapreneurship, and cooperation with startups.

Innovation scope at CDiscount

Innovation at Cdiscount covers from pain killing, to game changing and disrupting with corresponding timelines.

Innovation Acculturation

Cdiscount has become a tech company in the sense that it employs 700 engineers (vs 50 engineers 5 years before), with agile software-like organization (Ux included in development team, DevOps, feature teams or thematic squads like in Spotify, etc…). 50 data scientists have joined the marketing & sales teams.

20 to 30% of the employees should be trained to design thinking with a view to empower people, in a company that feels 100% digital.

Intrapreneurship Device

Cdiscount Academy collects internal ideas.

Among 100 ideas, 30 are pre-selected based on their number of Likes. 5 are selected, and encouraged to staff a team around their idea in one week. The next week, they get out of the builiding, and are trained with Startup Palace. They enrich their project, and prepare a pitch session (MVP), in front of the Executive Committe. 2 members of the jury come from outside of Cdiscount.

1,500 people attended the pitch session for the 20 anniversary of Cdiscount. 4 out of 5 projects got 1 to 3 months to prove the potential of their idea. One winner was linked to new delivery means, involving transparency and accessibility, based on a design thinking approach. Another example is the payment in 4 times that comes from an internal team.

Startups Cooperation Devices

The cooperation with startups was built on an Incubators & Accelerators Tour of France to detect most appropriate startups.

Then 3 targeted devices were set-up: The POC Factory, The Warehouse, and The Lab. The Warehouse and The Lab actually came from business teams – Supply and Marketing- meaning innovation is spreading within the company!

The POC Factory aims at simplifying POcs (Proof Of Concept) with ecommerce/web startups, based on the removal of various hurdles. Budget, Letter of Intent, straightforward methodology, IT resources, 1 slide pitch for Executive Committee decision, all these items have been re-designed to streamline POCs.

Business Units managers are closely associated. They even pitch in front of startups their most urgent needs. Cdiscount General Manager meets with the team involved in a POC with a startup.

The results are impressive: 2,000 startups were sourced over 2 years, 100 POCs were completed, 65% industrialized.

A well managed POC paves the road for a fluid industrialization, as they say at Cdiscount!

CDiscount has also initiated 2 other devices: The Warehouse is an incubator/accelerator to co-create logistics innovations, and The Lab, a recently created program for marketing and data’s startups, aiming at creating the next disruptive feature. The challenge here is to move from product data to customer data, and build predictive models.

The Warehouse is a 300 square meters space (in addition to 200 m2 co-working space) to experiment new type of logistics, and give Cdiscount 2 to 3 years ahead of competition.

An example of co-innovation is Exotec Solutions, a French startup expert in IA and robtics, which has rolled-out 3D robots (Skypod solution) that catch products in racks located up to 10 meters high, and fetch them to warehousemen.

Best practices, and Impacts

CDiscount offers open API to connect startups to its marketplace at lightning speed on marketing and data topics.

KPIs are set for POCS, trust with the startups is paramount, and business units are committed upstream.

Beyond performance, open innovation challenges Cdiscount teams, and contributes to transformation. Open innovation future is bright at Cdiscount!

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