Paris or not Paris?

What organisation for which business model?

Two schools of thought in term of organisation for which business model in the era of digitalisation are facing each other.

France has a rich history with a unique sense of Grandeur and proud of its heritage like Versailles and Louis IV. Even our current Presidency still runs under such Grandeur and prestige of the past (I invite you to read the book: Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: What Makes the French So French? (Anglais) Broché - Jean-Benoit Nadeau – Julie Barlow - 28 avril 2004).

“Les Francais si archa?ques et si modernes.” Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t be wrong

What it means in the corporate world?

In France, corporate leaders prefer to centralise their power & decision centre. Paris is the capital of France and sometimes they believe the centre of the world should make the decision that will impact operations 12,000km away. One head is better than 2? Centralising the operation in some case could be seen as cost saving, some other case more efficient operation or may be less confrontation of views.

Digital age

Digital disruption is impacting every sectors of the economy, from retail with online sales, social media to banking, insurance, media and of course people mobility (air transport, car-sharing, etc).

Digital forces us to rethink not only our business models, but also our organisation and corporate culture.

The digital revolution is underway in the air transport industry, with an impact on the entire chain of our activities (self-services - passenger experience). Digital completely redefines our production methods from mass to workshop (atelier), our relations with our customers (more intimacy moving from B-to-B to B2B2C) as it is vital to understand the customer aspirations. It creates new businesses that accelerate the transformation of this increasingly downstream sector at airport: smart infrastructure, decentralised production, agile app development, green mobility, smart city project development. It is a real paradigm shift.

Digital give us the greater means to control and coordinates a complex system, made of intelligent equipment and identify management in order to deliver a truly seamless passenger experience.

Customer relations: in-depth knowledge of the actor-passenger.

Traditionally, the relationships of passengers with OEMs have always been sporadic if not inexistence. Firm like self-service equipment engage with integrators, Airports and sometimes Airlines. Passengers are not interested in the technology or their relationship with the providers but focus on the Experience.

Clearly, this is likely to change with the emergence of multiples mobile applications to process their check-in, security check, duty-free claim, etc..

In order to move into the value chain from transactional to solution provider, passenger experience shall be part of the manufacturer DNA. Putting the human experience at the beginning of the solution design process.

New businesses: smart at every step or touch point

Smart home, smart lighting, smart charging, smart traffic, smart city, smart grid, smart airport: terms that mask the sudden entrance of Internet of Things (IoT) with its sensors, its Big Data and its algorithms capable of analysing data to continuously optimise the passenger flow and overall operation, from the smallest airport to the world largest airport (Atlanta - Beijing).

The word “smart” holds the promise of cost efficiency, saving, but also that of greater comfort, value creation and new jobs (immediate need of software developers, designers, and technicians to support).

A decentralised organisation

Back to the organisation to capture the world largest market: Asia Pacific - Middle East.

Instead of centralised development, manufacturing, marketing, communication, we should create 1 to 3 geographic operational entities. Let’s limit the hierarchical levels of corporate central functions to its minimal. Most importantly, lower the level of decision-making. The operational entities like Singapore for Asia Pacific should have considerable independence to decide on crucial issues such as medium-term strategy, their mission or HR management.

"The role of headquarters is primarily to endorse and support the entities."

In this fast-paced world, we shall also accelerate decision-making. For exemple, we should lower management fees and create self-funding budget of half of a million euros to the new businesses and to digital. The decision-making process associated with this budget of investment is designed to be more responsive and faster than the long-standing process in place for the group’s investments. The new motto should be “1 Quarter is a year”. This acceleration is also reflected in the adoption of agile methods, particularly for the development of digital solutions. 

Tomorrow mobility? the majority of tomorrow’s business models are yet to be invented, need to instil a new corporate culture, which encourages employees (I prefer to call them associates, partners) to take risks, and create an organisation flexible enough to enhance collective intelligence. So many unused brains, let’s encourage internal innovation in creating thew idea with existing platform like Slack (Slack is a collaboration hub, where the right people and the right information come together, helping everyone get work done). Let’s rewards the next idea, emulate with team building and cooperation with allocation of x hours per week to think thank for new ideas. Create communities of transversal practices mixing the production, R&D, marketing who will create their own tribe.

Digital is not only what drives us to transform the organisation and culture. It is a driving force of change. We deploy Microsoft Office 365 and cloud services group-wide but what is the adoption rate? the knowledge of using all the tolls? how to help users? The trolls facilitate the exchange of ideas and transformation between employees who do not work in the same place, or even in the same department or entity.

Digital apps also encourage the creation of one-off project teams. HR will help to identify the skills we could exchange, which has a temporary requirement from 1 day to 12 months, and associates wishing to put their skills to good use, whether these come from past experiences or from a personal passion (IER Singapore | @francoisbigot developed a spare-part inventory system cloud base for IER ASPAC region out of his software development passion & skills - thank you! ).

Who share the same point of view? James Quincey CEO of Coca Cola advocating for a strong decentralisation in a recent article in Les Echos.

Isabelle Kocher, CEO of ENGIE (I am really big fan of her!) as she transforms ENGIE to embrace the digital transformation with a new horizontal organisation giving more power to 3-4 geographic centre of excellence to move and deliver faster than before.

Let’s use the energy within the group. No need super powers to improve and adapt our business. Power-up our people!