Xavier Guerin, partner coach at VISCONTI Partners, welcomes today Yann Aledo, co-founder of OpinionWay, a marketing research and opinion poll institute.

Who is Yann Aledo?

Yann trained in political science before starting his career in advertising. He then worked at Publicis as a Trade Marketing Consultant and then joined Ipsos. He then decided with two classmates to create OpinionWay. In 2000, he became the pioneer of online studies in France (surveys conducted on the internet).

Did the Internet allow OpinionWay to disrupt this market?

For Yann, this is the case. The year 2000 was the advent of digital technology in France, but it was not a global revolution since the United States had already started using the Internet four years earlier in the world of marketing and political studies. From then on, the three co-founders imported this new data collection technique.

What was the recipe for the success of OpinionWay?

At the time, they were pioneers. They operated in a market that conducted surveys by telephone, and previously face-to-face. Internet was not used by their competitors, including world leaders because its penetration rate was still very low in France. There were barely 12 to 15% of French people who had an internet connection and used it.

Surveys via the Internet therefore represented a major challenge to implement, by making the samples reliable. In addition, traditional institutes, which had just made significant investments on telephone platforms, did not have the ambition or the interest to develop studies via the Internet. The three managers were therefore seven years ahead of their competitors.

During these seven years, did they develop expertise that others did not have?

During these seven years, OpinionWay has not only developed a unique know-how, but has also built a reputation in a market where competition was not yet present. The educational campaign aimed at convincing customers of the reliability and effectiveness of the online methodology was a major challenge.

What was the most difficult thing at the time?

The educational campaign, which consisted in taking their pilgrim's stick to convince customers of the validity of this methodology, which was faster, cheaper but above all more reliable.

Technology is evolving very quickly and a certain number of innovations are profound vectors of transformation in Yann's business. What was the most impacting innovation?

In reality, the positioning of OpinionWay is not limited to the use of the Internet to interview consumers. Its positioning consists in exploring all technological innovations in order to identify, test and then integrate those that are useful to its profession. This could be summarised in three categories:

- Gathering the opinion: that is, interviewing consumers, citizens, leaders, opinion leaders, etc.

- Analyze: especially very large volumes of data, quickly and reliably

- Give back: once the data has been analyzed, the public must be able to understand it and the customers must appropriate it

On these three facets, there are a multitude of new technological partners that continuously optimize and improve the offer.

What type of impact did this have on the organization?

OpinionWay is constantly testing new tools and services and is constantly rethinking the organization and human capital to adapt it. For example, to make the deliverables more impactful, it is interesting to combine video, sound or image.

This requires hiring JRIs (Image Reporters). Another example: to deliver more synthetic, visual and interactive reports, it is necessary to create data designer positions. This was not done before.

Today, what is Xavier's vision of the management profession?

Within OpinionWay, there is a particularity. They are three founders. Yann therefore combines the concept of manager in the plural. Each of them, depending on the context, has a role that evolves. To illustrate this, Yann uses the metaphor of the king, the hero and the fairy. The king has the skill of discernment and vision, the hero the challenge and the fairy brings the resource, solves the problems.

Each of the three co-founders, Hugues Cazenave, Benjamin Gratton and Yann Aledo, in turn, was able to fulfill these functions. Their number also allowed them to have the strength to give everyone, at some point, the role of leader.

What advice would Yann give to young leaders?

- Do not isolate yourself;

- Surround yourself well;

- To be advised at all times;

- Compose a plural governance, and if this is not the case, get support.

For Yann, the key to success is always knowing how to question yourself by listening, not only to the market, but also to experts to question his model and adapt it constantly. This means having governance, a Comex, coaches,...