Open Innovation. Pascal Latouche

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      Introduction

      What were you doing in November 2013? For my part, it was in November 2013 that I discovered a vocation of which I had not been fully aware until then.

      A combination of circumstances put me in the shoes of someone who had to implement something that was unknown to many in my company: a corporate start-up accelerator. You will understand that I do not wish to go into more detail than that on the basis of circumstances, assuming that I owe myself a certain level of reserve as to what happens within the company of which I am still an employee. I pay tribute to this company, by the way. In any case, the story began like this and, as it turns out, would take me on many journeys….

      Let’s get back to the point at hand. So here I am, called to launch quite quickly (in three months), a corporate start-up accelerator. Do you know what this is? Without extending myself at this stage, I will just tell you that this is a type of open-innovation mechanism tasked with making internal teams within a company interact with external ones, for example, start-ups. I had previously worked a lot on marketing, sales, innovation from R&D (internal innovation) and with the world of developers (those who code). In hindsight, I guarantee you that this did not predestine me to hold a position as head of a corporate start-up accelerator and did not presuppose my ability to do it well. Indeed, I had never created a start-up and this ecosystem was quite unknown to me in fact.

      I.1. No obvious predisposition

In marketing, I had never really designed products in digital format! However, I knew from all my previous experiences within the current company (Telecom) and from all my experiences before this company (Agro-Food), how to put a given product or service on the market (positioning, competition, price, preferred channels, etc.). As a marketing expert, I recognized that I was, because I had been to the right professional (business) schools.

      In sales, I had never held a sales position (too shy and unassuming, a lack of chatter, as we would commonly say, the person you don’t notice). I don’t know how to sell and I never knew how to sell myself (it’s still true today)! My tasks have always concerned product argumentation. In short, writing down for salespeople what they needed to say to sell the product well. But you can well imagine that a salesperson sells more as they are rewarded for the sales in question. Not all products are rewarded. My sales arguments and other commercial tools were therefore sales aids and did not in any way presume the success of the sale itself. I rather like to consider my tasks in sales as a natural extension of my marketing expertise.

      With the innovation coming out of R&D, my job in essence was to identify solutions not used to date (tucked away in drawers) and to evaluate what the company could do with them in consultation with the marketing and sales teams. This task was very interesting. I hadn’t worked with pure engineering profiles until then. I admit that it took me some time to adapt to understanding what they were saying. By understanding, I mean knowing how to ask the right questions so that the expression of their technical discourse could become audible to the non-engineer that I am. It was also during this period that the scope of my tasks broadened, because technical products often require development. For those who experienced the 2010–2013 period, I think they would recall the emergence of the start-up weekend-type events. The latter were very badly labeled “start-up weekends”, since they were mostly developers who were in between pitching sessions, eating pizza and drinking cola! During these weekends, I really appreciated supporting, with my marketing and sales expertise, developers who on Friday evenings proposed their ideas and had the weekend to develop it. Developing an application in a weekend to hope to be the winner on Sunday night was very challenging. Modestly, I was making my contribution to these “techy” weekend warriors who have my total respect!

      So, as I was saying, in terms of the profile for taking responsibility for a corporate start-up accelerator, I wasn’t quite in the picture, as some would say. I’ve never created a start-up, and I’ve always been an employee. Thanks to my diplomas and a strong work ethic, I enjoyed working in relatively stable comfort. I say relatively stable because the sociology of large organizations sometimes imposes a balancing act on employees and we must avoid falling off. Finally, if you do it well, if you work well and avoid expressing too many sincere opinions, you receive your salary and finally, unless you have a social plan, you have peace of mind.

There is one point I will discuss, because it will be important for what follows. None of the positions I had held in the companies in which I had worked, or in which I work, existed before I was entrusted with them. In short, I have always systematically forged my own job using the company as a kind of resource provider (a “business angel” in a way…). At the time, I was not aware of the importance of this point, which turned out to be an essential asset with hindsight. In any case, at the time I took over responsibility for this corporate start-up accelerator, I was not aware of this asset, so it was a bit like I didn’t consciously have it. Moreover, those who appointed me responsible for the corporate start-up accelerator to be created, knew nothing about it. Not being aware of an asset, or that your environment is not aware of an asset, can be problematic if you want to capitalize on it….

      I.2. What’s this “thing”?

      Here I was, in charge of a corporate accelerator to be created in three months, from a blank sheet of paper in terms of objectives and implementation. I was not alone in this adventure; a long-term colleague was once again at my side to help me move forward with this new challenge. I say again because we’d been working together for a while and we really enjoyed doing it.

      I had vaguely understood from this new challenge that the company was keen to support the world of young innovative companies and benefit from it at least from a brand image point of view. It was the time when the major brands in France (CAC 40 stock market index) wanted to show themselves, politicians and citizens their commitment to the times: digital technology.

      What I learned from the school of life and from the school of the professional world is that when you spend money, you have to make money. I don’t know if I knew how to create a business for myself. But I knew how to do business with a product or service. In more elaborate terms, I would say that managing things could only be business to me. We had to do business with the start-ups. Moreover, communication is not my field (and I have a lot of respect for the many corporate communicators). It is on this unique “Business” conviction that I developed the objectives and implementation of the corporate start-up accelerator.

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