Christophe Bezu, VISCONTI Partner and Coach, today welcomes Bertrand Barré, CEO of GROUPE ZEBRA, an innovation and design consulting company based in Lyon. On several occasions, Christophe and Bertrand have worked hand in hand on product innovation and diversification.

Who is Bertrand Barré?

Coming from Hauts-de-France, his basketball practice brought him to Villeurbanne. Indeed, Bertrand is an ex-athlete who has been involved in entrepreneurship for thirty-five years, by founding the ZEBRA GROUP.

Bertrand is a playmaker who recruits talent, builds teams based on innovation projects and moves his customers forward, game after game. Today, the business world has changed, we need to go faster with new rules and major transformations. In this context, innovation has become a real profession.

How does Bertrand define innovation within GROUPE ZEBRA?

Innovation is a way of creating wealth for a company that, year after year, faces increasing competition and increasingly complex distribution systems. Innovation is also the way to create difference and therefore, in the long run, the way to create value. That is its objective!

Innovation includes processes that make it possible to identify “problem” points to be solved. By solving these types of problems, a different expectation is aroused, and the market is then re-suggested to pay “added value”. This implies internal organizations that are different from R&D (Research and Development).

R&D and Innovation need to be separated. Of course, innovation sometimes uses R&D, but it also uses sales, marketing... It is therefore a set of jobs that are at the service of the production of an impacting new offer capable of transforming a traditional market state.

In all areas, it is necessary to identify the axis that made a market successful and once this axis has been identified, you must know how to get out of it to create a new platform that will generate value. Businesses are very often based on improving what already exists year after year.

In addition to this improvement in current performance, innovation is there to identify new ways of creating new value.

To deepen the key role of strategy consulting in supporting managers, discover our latest article upon Why seek business strategy advice?.

What will be the impact of AI on innovation? Is there a good innovation and a bad innovation?

There are a lot of bad innovations. Because the word “innovation” is often confused with “technical progress”. There can be a lot of pitfalls in innovation.

- First mistake: many companies develop services or products that are too technological. The market then no longer has any valid reason to follow this trend because prices are rising and consumer needs are already sufficiently satisfied. Paradoxically, the evolution of Tech can lead to counter-revolutions Low Tech.

- Second possible error: a lack of consumer awareness. Often the market is not sufficiently observed. To avoid this error, GROUPE ZEBRA has developed methodologies for field observation through video: “Real Marketing” in order to verify the market and analyze real behaviors, beyond the declarative.

On the subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Bertrand stresses that we are in a period of upheaval. AI will change a lot of jobs before innovation. Bertrand even thinks that AI will help them transmit the experience. The latter is necessary in innovation, which is why GROUPE ZEBRA has just launched a SAAS solution called Junidan. This solution is a digital mentor who supports project managers in the management of innovative projects.

To find out in more detail how artificial intelligence will transform the world of work and its use in businesses, you can consult these articles: How artificial intelligence will transform the world of work and The use of artificial intelligence or AI in businesses.

GROUPE ZEBRA is therefore using AI to reflect on the failures experienced over the past thirty-five years. It is the exploitation of these errors that allowed them to found algorithms to help managers at different stages of their project. GROUPE ZEBRA is also launching a second service linked to AI: online product testing. With this service, they record the movement of the eyes or the intonation of the users' voices, in order to measure the differences in reaction between product versions. AI allows them to go further in understanding humans.

AI will therefore change the transmission of culture, experience and the accuracy of words.

And innovation in CSR?

There is classical CSR, which consists in working better with humans, organizations, and the carbon footprint, and there is innovation in CSR. According to Bertrand, innovating with CSR means, for example, stopping designing products using production tools located at the other end of the world. In most of their departments, they realize that at the very moment of the specifications, they are thinking about the production tool. For Bertrand, it is necessary to localize, that is to say, generate products or services according to local skills and structures.

CSR coupled with innovation means reinventing not only the offer but also the process of implementing this offer. Beyond the use of recycled materials, it is inventing new lives for products. In this line, in June, GROUPE ZEBRA will announce the launch of a textile brand that aims to be multi-life. Since the sale, the repair, the second life and the end of life. For the moment, this type of innovative products is being developed by start-ups, but large groups are paradoxically in the best position to innovate like this. It will come quickly.

Does this require innovation in management?

Innovation in management is fundamental. Nowadays, people are at the center of everything. The more complex the world becomes, the more managers must manage people. And as a result, the more empathetic leaders are needed. But are there as many as that? Pyramid structures need to evolve. At GROUPE ZEBRA, we prefer the concept of trays.

Each of these platforms works in mini teams so that there is always a link between employees. Because it is necessary to rebuild direct access to managers and this requires major team transformations that can be complicated.

According to Bertrand, it is essential to receive support in its restructuring and the recreation of these relationships.

To learn more about the importance of surrounding yourself with experts to define and refine your strategy, discover our latest item

Bertrand Barré has experienced coaching, how did he experience it? On what subject (s) was he accompanied?

GROUPE ZEBRA did not have a Management Committee, so Bertrand decided that he should not fall into the pyramid business model. He wanted to be accompanied to:

- Learn the method,

- Learn to structure a Codir,

- Learn to define the team to represent all of the company's jobs,

- Give a vision and a mission to this Codir.

It also helped him to make fewer decisions on his own. According to Bertrand, support is periodic. For him, this need comes back throughout a career as a manager. “The more you grow, the more you have to work on your fundamentals, it's just like in top-level sport! ”

What subject (s) does GROUPE ZEBRA mainly work on, and with what type of customers?

GROUPE ZEBRA is a company born in product design, so most of its activity is focused on the design of new products for all types of industry. No specialty. But for the past ten years, GROUPE ZEBRA has also been working for service companies. They found that their product design methods worked very well in services. But the work is different for different companies. In large groups, they need to spread the culture of innovation, while in mid-sized companies, it is the concrete development of the offer that takes precedence. Upstream, and therefore market observations, also differ according to the type of company concerned and its demographic location.

Also, it is necessary to “benchmark” constantly to keep up to date with new developments.

Since innovation is a mix of several markets, it is imperative to create teams combining internal expertise and a diversity of external perspectives.

What is the ambition of GROUPE ZEBRA in the next ten years?

To become the reference for innovation in France. Innovation is no longer an additional activity but a job with particular expertise. Methods are needed to think of innovation projects in conjunction with other services (Marketing, Sales...). GROUPE ZEBRA is working on these methods. The market needs references in terms of innovation consulting. The objective of GROUPE ZEBRA is to become the leader.

What are the parallel topics that Bertrand is working on?

For five years, GROUPE ZEBRA has been considering adding a second pillar to its business. So they decided to invest in their own industrial projects. They invest and are shareholders. Bertrand wants GROUPE ZEBRA to be a consultant and a real operator of innovation.

Three tips for leaders

- The vision: establish a clear vision because if there is no vision, there is no project or team.

- The Team: the team must be multi-skilled and at the service of a manager, while being very close to him. It must be mixed (internal/external)

- Profitability: stay close to profitability. An innovation project is one that brings in money. It is therefore necessary to structure projects with funding, think about financing for the launch of these projects, calculate your ROI from the start and its KPIs...