Hubert Reynier, founder of VISCONTI Partners, interviews Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle, co-founder and CEO of the Theodo Group, a consulting and implementation firm in digital technologies.

Created in 2009, the group designs and develops tailor-made digital products for customers. Today, it represents 90 million turnover, employs 600 people and is present in four countries. It is composed of ten startups with complementary expertise in web and mobile technologies, data and AI, Cloud and DevOps, Fintech and Medtech.

The Theodo Group supports both large groups and startups in various sectors. In the field of energy, for example, he has developed an application that retrieves data from Linky and Gazpar meters, to allow individuals to measure the carbon footprint of their homes and to obtain personalized advice to reduce it. The Theodo Group also works in the public domain with customers such as the BPI or in the pharmaceutical industry, in particular with an application for the monitoring of chronic wounds aimed at helping nurses and doctors.

A few months ago Benoît bought back the funds from his capital, for what reason?

The group was co-founded by Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle and Fabrice Bernhard. And since then, their situation has changed.

Three important moments should be noted:

- The creation of the company. At first, they didn't know exactly what they wanted to do, so they didn't come up with a specific business plan to ask for funds.

- 2017. Benoît and Fabrice decided to speed things up, to have the financial resources and support. There were 200 people in the business at the time and they felt, like any entrepreneur, that they needed to take the next step. They therefore brought in two investment funds. They helped them to become professional, to do their first M&A, challenged them on their strategy...

- The next step. Benoît and Fabrice wanted to think very long term. Funds invest for the long term, but as time goes by, the more alignment problems may appear.

In their sector, there are two topics that founders and investors may no longer be aligned on:

- The international one. As a consulting and service company, international business is an important investment area. However, it is a project after 10 or 15 years, it is not necessarily profitable in 2 or 3 years.

- The holding of capital. A financier is sensitive to potential dilution and the founders, for their part, want to give themselves the freedom to associate employees with the capital as development progresses.

Faced with this, they therefore made the decision not to enter a new cycle with investment funds but to buy back the shares with the help of a debt fund.

The managing directors of each entity develop their own business forming a collaboration with their peers and the central structure of the group. Why did you imagine this type of organization and what are its limits?

The company is called “Theodo Group” because it is composed of ten different entities. There are four internationally, and six in France. The founders chose this growth model to meet 3 challenges:

- The start-up format: how to grow while maintaining a start-up culture?

- Attractiveness: how to attract talented and ambitious people?

- Innovation: you need to quickly position yourself on new technologies

Launching new entities allowed them to address these three issues. Autonomous and independent entities keep the start-up spirit, there is then the possibility of offering talents to become a co-founder of their start-up and it is possible to innovate because in this configuration there is a group of people dedicated to a specific activity.

It worked very well. But there's no perfect box design all the time. For Theodo, the more entities they create, the more time must be invested for them to work together. In fact, although they are different entities, they serve common customers, which is why they need to collaborate. So, questions arise for them: under what conditions should a new entity be created? How can we find a new way to innovate? In this situation, the right balance must be found.

Theodo's cultural model

Theodo's culture is strong. When Fabrice and Benoît created the company, they had the ambition to reinvent the company. They wanted a structure that was different from the others. So they asked a lot about culture. A key moment in their history was the discovery of agility. It has a strong point: the empowerment of teams. This point is crucial for the development of employees.

Agility has its roots in Lean, who comes from Japan. The Lean is interesting because it represents a change in the vision of the company. The strategy Lean is a way of thinking: “My company will succeed because I will devote most of my effort to helping each employee develop and reach the potential they want to reach”. There is a whole method including problem solving that consists in taking every difficulty as an opportunity to learn. The role of the manager is also changing in this method. He is usually the decision-maker who announces what needs to be done. But in an organization Lean, the manager does not hold this position. He creates a clear framework for the employee, seeks to set up an effective support system and comes to the field to glimpse the possible difficulties of employees. This mode of operation allows us to be in a culture that aims at customer satisfaction while promoting the development of the employee and making a positive contribution to society. This project drives Theodo as a company.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” so it is dominant, how does Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle see the evolution of this culture over time?

Teleworking is a challenge, a great innovation that gives flexibility to people's schedules. This improves the quality of life and is a huge asset. But it also has disadvantages. Especially for learning, which is easier when teams are physically in the same room. Benoît realized this by noting the place of the social network created in businesses: knowing people allows you to ask them for help. After that, the group sought to find the right balance.

The subject of Green is essential for Theodo. This is quite natural since one of the fundamental values of Lean is the fight against waste. Green is therefore at the heart of their concerns. There is the idea of doing more using fewer physical and human resources. From a business point of view, the company has a real challenge on the Green part because it does not completely control what is done on its apps. They must therefore develop their ability to advise their customers and offer them solutions that are economically efficient and good for the planet. Paradoxically, this often goes hand in hand.

A wish for Theodo for the future?

The company wants to make a positive contribution for customers, employees and society in general. The key point in this thinking is ingenuity. This addresses the three issues: if they make apps smarter, customers will be satisfied; being ingenious is a way to thrive and progress; and at the global level, environmental challenges are now considerable.

Benoît and Fabrice believe in people, they believe in progress and are convinced that it is possible to invent new things, solve technological problems and ensure that people live better tomorrow while maintaining the planet.

This is the challenge for the company and its founders. How can you be more ingenious? Through growth. It is by developing business that they will then have more customers and consequently more opportunities for ingenuity. Their goal is to reach one billion in turnover.

At the same time, they are part of a logic of sustainability. They think a lot about how to make the Theodo group last over time.

Another important issue: the international dimension. They want to export French ingenuity internationally and to develop at least 50% of their business there.