A look back at the innovation projects initiated by the Groupe Zebra

The Groupe Zebra has many years of experience in the field of innovation and transformation aimed at improving performance and working conditions in the company. These experts in strategic consulting and communication support executives and managers in finding the perfect balance to bring about greater productivity while reducing costs and motivating teams.

There are three main areas of focus:

• the implementation of a strategy;
• the transformation aimed at securing the innovation process;
• the choice of design to stage unique experiences that leave a lasting impression.

Setting up a strategy

The innovation strategy includes a long phase of studies, research and analysis. Tools are devised to facilitate the reading of results and follow-up.

For all innovation project, hybrid thinking, centred on the human being and based on a perfect synergy of skills, offers a different and original approach. This approach guarantees more efficient decision-making intelligence and more reactive operational intelligence, focused on the ability of each individual to contribute his or her “stone to the edifice”.

The innovation project is then based on a significant and lasting differentiation, ensuring competitiveness and predominance in a market where competition is tough. Among the achievements of the Groupe Zebra, the Hipli project or zero waste parcel represents the project of the future, which marks the will to avoid waste and therefore to respect the planet by limiting rubbish. The Hipli parcel can be reused up to 100 times and thus avoid 25 kg of waste. For this project, Zebra was able to provide “technical expertise, superb monitoring and a vision of continuous improvement, always looking to the future”, as Anne Sophie Raoult, co-founder of Hipli, points out.

Help with transformation

Innovation management is a concept aimed at structuring the innovative approach by accelerating the implementation of the innovation project and creating new examples that can serve as models. Here, the role of the Groupe Zebra is to highlight new levers for growth and to examine the relevance and effectiveness of the models currently used by the company. The various dimensions of the project – marketing, technical, economic, legal and planning dimensions – are analysed in detail.

The ASF “Advanced Shoes Factory” recently benefited from the know-how and creativity of the Zebra team. The objective was to build effective communication around a project to produce 100% Made in France shoes in a fully robotised factory. The entrepreneurs CHAMATEX GROUP, Babolat, Salomon and Millet wanted to stay as close as possible to consumers while offering products with high added value. To help them realise their innovation project, the Groupe Zebra produced a complete technical file, including the financing of the transformation and its short-term development, assisting the brands so that they could boost local economic life while benefiting from good flexibility. By simplifying the “process”, automating and reducing the number of operations to be carried out, a lead over the competition was achieved.

The materialisation of innovation through design

The organisation of processes, teams and funding will enable the implementation of communication tools, advertising and other means of making oneself known and improving one’s image. The role of the design agency is to bring an innovative concept that will revolutionise the products and services already in place.

Thus, the materialisation of the innovation will go through different stages: the Groupe Zebra relies on the Oblique Vision, which consists of identifying the elements of differentiation and representing them in a formal and graphic way using sprint and design fiction tools, to speed up the creation of prototypes and the consumer test phase, but also to anticipate the future by building on existing elements and making them evolve.

The innovation project is therefore, in this sense, boosted by a creative and innovative approach. Thanks to product design, communication actions are multiplying. Structuring is essential: the marketing mix gives a real identity to the product with a brand architecture, a name, a visual identity, a brand universe and targeted communication.

Boursin, Aviva Cuisines, Décathlon, or even IOO, the Taiwanese start-up that was looking for another way to present its connected air purifier, and Aixam, the company that creates licence-free cars of a different kind, called on the Zebra Group. In fact, the search for new design touches all sectors of mass consumption.

An example of web design: Bollé

The digital strategy implemented by the Groupe Zebra subsidiary Linghün has enabled the Bollé eyewear manufacturing company to present in detail on the Internet its new technology used on Phantom lenses. Visible all over the world, this presentation was accompanied by an interactive solution to enable interested parties to test the technology for themselves. Innovative, the highlighting of the product helped to give a positive image of the brand and to accelerate its development.

A concrete example of a business model: Michelin innovation

The Groupe Zebra has been supporting the Michelin company in each of its projects (excluding tyres) for over 30 years. Alliances have been created with sports and leisure brands for the manufacture of ultra-robust, quality soles. Experts are currently working on an anticipation programme linked to the future of urban mobility. This study has made it possible to initiate prospective work and the identification of disruptive business models, based on collaboration and the repetition of targeted actions.

You have an innovation project and wish to call on experts to carry it out? The Zebra Group in Lyon is at your disposal for further information. Face the competition thanks to new methods and expert know-how!