Jérôme Siméon, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Gen­er­al for Appli­ca­tion Ser­vices at Capgem­i­ni, heads a team of 8 000 whose job it is to inte­grate com­put­er sci­ence sys­tems, no mat­ter the sec­tor of appli­ca­tion. “This has been a growth activ­i­ty in the Capgem­i­ni group for years now, and this con­stant­ly calls for inno­va­tion that ben­e­fits our clients”, says Mr Sime­on by way for an introduction. 

How important is innovation in your sector?

Along with indus­tri­al­iza­tion, inno­va­tion is the main dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing ele­ment in the com­put­er sci­ence mar­ket place. We can observe a mar­ket-place with a con­cen­tra­tion of actors, a neces­si­ty if you want to pre­serve a crit­i­cal mass to be able to con­tribute with these ele­ments. Com­put­er sci­ence sys­tems and their appli­ca­tions – over just a few years – have pro­gressed from arti­san to indus­tri­al con­cep­tions. In just 20 years, they have rev­o­lu­tion­ized work and pro­duc­tion meth­ods, which are now being increas­ing­ly out­sourced. But what is even more sig­nif­i­cant is the rev­o­lu­tion that is tak­ing place today. New tech­nolo­gies are con­stant­ly com­ing on line and are trans­form­ing our dai­ly lives. In our busi­ness jar­gon, we call that the SMACT effect: S for Social Media, M for Mobil­i­ty, A for Ana­lyt­ics and Big Data, C for Cloud and T for Things, viz., the object-world Inter­net. Our job is to help the entre­pre­neur­ial world to use these new tech­nolo­gies oppor­tune­ly, in the right place and to meet their objec­tives of con­tribut­ing the company’s value. 

How do you accompany your clients in this process?

Inno­va­tion per se, from a strict­ly tech­no­log­i­cal point of view has lim­it­ed val­ue. It must be inte­grat­ed to the cor­po­rate process­es to attain a tar­get­ed val­ue. It must be incor­po­rat­ed into a larg­er mod­el com­bin­ing indus­tri­al capac­i­ty, co-oper­a­tion among the teams and the company’s eco-sys­tem. With­out co-oper­a­tion, inno­va­tion is a mirage with no future, which nei­ther improves the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the com­pa­ny nor its mar­ket posi­tion. To enhance the inte­gra­tion process, Capgem­i­ni places its trust in its human resources, insist­ing on con­tin­ued train­ing, on tak­ing brave even risky deci­sions and on a renew­al of teams to inte­grate dynam­ic young grad­u­ates who offer fresh visions, nov­el ideas, new behav­iour­al atti­tudes … to assist the change from ideas to projects, Capgem­i­ni has instilled spe­cif­ic work method­olo­gies and equip­ment, e.g., the Lab’Innovation.

Capgemini has set up 7 Lab’Innovation units in France. What do they exactly?

In France, yes, we have 7 Lab’Innovations units in Suresnes, Nantes, Rennes, Lille, Lyon, Greno­bles and Toulouse. Alto­geth­er, there are some30 such Capgem­i­ni units round the world. They are net­worked and enable col­lab­o­ra­tive work with both clients and part­ners. These units are demo-inten­sive places, con­ducive to cre­ative ideas, to pro­to­typ­ing and serve to accom­pa­ny the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the clients. It pro­vides an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty for young peo­ple to express their poten­tial all the more so that in these Lab’Innovation units they can work with start-ups who often bring a “dis­rup­tive” point of view. 

What is your strategy, in terms of innovation?

I always demand three things from my teams: 1° proof of ROI (return on invest­ment) while pre­serv­ing their all-impor­tant right to make mis­take; 2° a spec­i­fi­ca­tion for the use val­ue of any inno­va­tion; 3° speed. On this lat­ter point, speed is essen­tial if you want to remain effi­cient in a dig­i­tal world and this implies hav­ing and using effi­cient tools and method­ol­o­gy in our offices. 

What advice would you offer to students in innovation?

Any­thing and every­thing is pos­si­ble! Dis­card all your men­tal bar­ri­ers – envis­age progress just like the hori­zon, it is always on the move and elusive.