Eco-Design
Technological Innovation at a Crossroads
The modern world is characterised by speed, complexity and the ever-increasing hybridisation of the real and virtual worlds. Innovating in this infinitely complex world requires us to constantly question both our production processes and the mental representations on which our management practices and organisations are based. Traditionally, we have distinguished between several forms of innovation: technological innovation (technological breakthroughs leading to new products or services), social innovation (the emergence of a new social need), innovation in usage (in the way a product is used), as well as, artistic or creative innovation (product design, new tastes in food, etc.).
But today, these traditional boundaries have become blurred, and innovation has to be global. It must enable a new, richer consumer experience not simply the discovery of a new product or a new usage. It requires an in-depth overhaul of traditional models, and can affect every area of your organisation: product offering, processes, marketing and management, etc. All your teams will therefore be affected in the more or less short term. They will need the support of an expert with know-how in all these areas. Our group, at the crossroads of Management, Marketing, R&D and Design, is the partner you need to support you in an innovation process which, as we have seen, is no longer just the idea of a genius tinkering away in his garage, but needs to be placed at the heart of your organisation.
Speed and Agility: Turning Innovation into Value
Exacerbated competition on a global scale, and ever-decreasing customer loyalty, mean that there is no guarantee today of moving from the project stage to that of creating value, driving profitability and even less cash flow. Our teams of pioneers are trained to activate your organisation’s driving forces for innovation as quickly as possible, and to build ‘sustainable innovation’. As part of ad hoc agile teams, we work with you in an extremely short space of time to build a project and bring it to fruition, through rapid iterations rather than a linear timetable marked by numerous unproductive meetings. Our strength? We not only have many years experience of working with major innovation projects, but we also have a mastery of the “unknown territories”, so that we go looking for innovative ideas where institutionalised companies, afraid of leaving the beaten track, will not go.
The agile project mode that we advocate must rapidly lead to prototyping or a confrontation with the reality of use.
Cross-functionality is also at the root of this project mode: innovation is often the fruit of confrontation with the unknown, with different managerial practices and ways of thinking. Far from being a hindrance, this confrontation is the main source of progress and innovation. Our teams will be able to integrate into your organisation to create the right conditions for this ‘productive confrontation’ and activate the forces underlying it.
It’s by doing that you learn, and only practice and feedback will lead you to a finished product that meets the complex needs of your consumers.
Sustainable development must be the guiding principle of innovation
Today, the experience that consumers of goods and services are looking for has become all-encompassing: sensory and emotional, it must also speak to their reason and reinforce their own values. One of these values is environmental awareness. Our planet has reached its limits, so your range of products and services must be in line with the shared belief that our world has finite resources. Innovation must be ecological and sustainable. Your organisation must prove to its customers that it is fully committed to environmental considerations, and that its products, processes, production methods and management will not harm the planet in any way whatsoever.
Here again, the complexity of the issues and the huge variety of fields involved make it necessary to have the support of experienced experts, who have long participated in innovation in sustainable development and ecological innovation. Here again, Groupe Zebra is at the heart of these concerns, having supported pioneering companies and groups in the field of ecological innovation and sustainable innovation right from the start.
Our support for sustainable innovation
While there was a time when a technological breakthrough was a guarantee of economic success, this is no longer the case. Other dimensions are being integrated into the innovation process. And these environmental and sustainable dimensions (ecological innovation) are integrated across your organisation: process, business model, marketing, organisation, etc…. All your fields of action are concerned and must integrate this concept of sustainability. Innovation must above all be sustainable. And to be sustainable, your entire organisation needs to integrate this concern. Our teams will be able to identify the people resources within your organisation, support them through the change, and engage these curious, competent, ambitious and modern players in a collaborative, sustainable innovative process.
Groupe Zebra, at the crossroads of the fields concerned by innovation, has the expertise and skills needed to support you in this process of sustainable innovation, which now more than ever, needs to be at the heart of your organisation.
See : Neofarming, ASF 4.0 and Hipli.