Illustration : Thierry Cap de Coume
Nekoé, the number one French centre specialised in innovation through services, was launched on 22 September in Orleans (Commerce International n°56). Largely
financed by the local government and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which have provided the sum of 505,000 euros, it will help local businesses that wish to direct all or part of their economic model toward services. It will also support those that have already chosen this focus in developing new solutions.
“Industry is vital to the Centre region. It is indispensable to provide the six departments of the region with the means to increase their competitiveness,” stated regional president François Bonneau during his presentation of the new centre.
A public-private partnership
The IBM group is also participating in the project, with a donation of 120,000 euros. “More than 50% of IBM’s turnover comes from service activities. With Nekoé, weare seeking to understand the problems of manufacturers whose results are decreasing, and to help them approach their work in a new manner,” according to Marc Dumas, the centre’s president and director of social relations for IBM France. Elected officials, small and medium enterprises and large groups are taking part in a collective, transverse thought process. Amongst the other partners, the University of Orleans has also gotten involved through “a new type of laboratory that allows different actors from the university and beyond to carry out research,” states Youssoufi Touré, the university’s Vice-President. “We are asking questions together”. Several regional business heads who are partners of the project have brought up the idea of a “share economy that will allow us to create value together.”
The relationship between university research and local economic interests, which often provokes debate in France, seems altogether natural for these actors. “150 universities worldwide are already working in services. India is advanced in this respect. The idea behind this project factory is to come together and create an ecosystem like the one that has been working in Germany for several years now,” according to Paul Pietyra, the centre’s director. Wilhelm Taurel, Vice-President of the professional association AFSMI Deutschland (Association for Services Management International), was even invited to Nekoé’s inauguration.
Building on the German model
Its professional association, created in the United States and present in Germany since 1991, regularly organises regional and international conferences. The role of education and higher learning in services management is among the AFSMI’s principal concerns. The association has created an adapted curriculum, which certifies education programmes in American and German universities. “In Germany, the science of services really got to its feet in 1997, with the first federal funding,” recalled Wilhelm Taurel. “The new programme of innovation through services, launched in 2006, is in full swing. This fits in with Germany’s strategy of high technologies, endowed with a 15 billion euro budget. This will allow for the systematic development of new activities and an increase in the quality of the existing offer, especially in the industrial sector.”
The programme encourages collective projects of an average length of three years, which take the form of consortiums between universities and research centres. Trans-disciplinary studies are carried out by participating businesses of all sizes. With its 2020 Services Plan of Action, which was announced in September, Germany intends to further the link between technological research and services by tying together various current and future programmes. “Technical aid systems for independent living for the elderly, which respond to the country’s current demographic problem, as well as medicine, energy, sustainable production and security are currently the main focus,” adds Wilhelm Taurel. The States of Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Rhineland and North Westphalia have implemented similar programmes. In total, Germany has recorded 900 projects for innovation through services since 1997.
Inventing business models
With Nekoé, the Orleans area and its partners intend to open the path to new solutions for businesses, including solutions for professionalisation. The University of Orleans is set to create and provide adapted training courses. “All innovative projects must ultimately be able to be developed on a national scale, while remaining based in their area – the Centre region – and maintaining a collective approach,” according to Marc Dumas. Nekoé’s partners already have long-term ambitions. “I view the centre as a think tank,” explains Benoît Berthe, Executive Director of Datacard, a company that markets solutions for secure identification and card personalisation. “In carrying out projects, we will be able to develop methods adapted to the particularities of businesses and their targeted markets. This methodology will be able to be marketed in order to complement Nekoé’s public funding.”
For the moment, this service is entirely free of charge, although Paul Pietyra confirms the “definite intention” to invent business models. “The method consists of diagnosing the needs of industrial, agricultural and service industries, and to integrate them into a process of transformation in order to bridge the gap between the idea and the project. This may involve drastic transformations, at times, in terms of human resources, conception of the offer, distribution and more. It requires taking into account the company’s very frame of mind.”
The Orleans region economy
• City located 50 minutes from Paris by train (130 kilometres)
• 220 worldwide leaders present in the area leaders – 9,500 businesses, 7,400 out-of-trade
• 272,572 residents, 130,000 professionals
• 20,000 students (16,000 registered at the University of Orleans)
• 9 specialised schools, 15 centres for professional training
• 1,900 professors in 39 public and 52 private laboratories
• 3 competitiveness clusters recognised by the French government: Cosmetic Valley (www.cosmetic-valley.com), Sciences and Systems of Electrical Energy (www.s2e2.fr) and Elastopôle (www.elastopole.com)
• National position: Number 1 regional cosmetic centre (70% of production), number 1 grain-producing region, 4th biggest logistical hub, 5th leading urban agglomeration for call centres
Source: Communauté d’agglomération Orléans-Val de Loire.
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