What I’ve learned after 1 year in #LePlateau

Large group/startups: the big enemies, really?

When people talk about start-ups and large groups, there are two opposing viewpoints that are commonly voiced: either they say that start-ups, which are agile, fast-moving and unscrupulous, swallow up, bit by bit, the business of large companies, which are old, sluggish and outdated, or they say that large companies, which are still rich and opportunistic, incorporate inexperienced and fragile start-ups by stifling their creativity in order to acquire their solutions.

We, however, believe that there is another way to perpetuate and further develop our activities, a win-win type of cooperation where we can mutually help each other in order to grow together and rapidly provide our clients with products and services that are the most pertinent, secure and useful to them.

Le Plateau is the result of this desire: maximise the points of contact between the Societe Generale group and the ecosystem, and create greater porosity between Societe Generale business units and start-ups.

More than a space, a third-place must bring a community.

The aim of Le Plateau is to create impact, facilitate networking and create ties, generate new start-up/Societe Generale experiments and trials and invent new businesses.

Le Plateau comprises a surface area of 1,000 m² that accommodates, under the same roof and for periods of up to 6 months, Societe Generale teams and start-ups from the ecosystem. Each resident works on their own disruptive or innovative project in large open work areas where teams mingle with each other. Le Plateau provides an environment enabling this work to be undertaken in a single place but also, and more importantly, provides methodological support to accelerate projects and enables residents to exchange and share their expertise and experience.

Le Plateau allows them to take the time to get to know each other, create ties, understand requirements and share ideas and solutions. On the basis of these shared values that are trust, goodwill, transparency and mutual aid, Le Plateau creates the conditions for serendipity and enables new businesses to be created based on knowledge of each other’s issues.

Diversity arises wealth!

By hosting start-ups from every sector of activity, the Group is able to develop cooperation to create B-to-C products, acquire additional resources for our employees, business units and corporate clients but also open its doors to solutions that provide a response to tomorrow’s major societal and environmental issues.

On Le Plateau, we therefore host:

• Full-time SG teams that are there to help accelerate a project phase over a jointly-defined timeframe, with commitments in terms of the objectives and deliverables, over a period ranging from 3 days to 2 months. The Innovation Division is responsible for accommodating them and providing them with a network of partners and service providers to enable these teams to adopt new work methods.

• Internal start-ups consisting of between 2 and 6 Societe Generale members of staff who work autonomously on highly-disruptive topics. These ‘squads’ consist of skilled and talented volunteers, from different departments if needed. Free to make split, orthogonal choices vis-à-vis the Group’s current business models, these teams explore highly-disruptive solutions. They are called on to rapidly prototype in order to swiftly succeed or swiftly fail on exploratory routes. The Innovation division is responsible for hosting them and providing them with methodological support. The Group’s partners in the ecosystem — Liberté Living Lab, Le Tank, MakeSense, WebSchool Factory, Jokkolabs, Schoolab and many others — contribute to achieving this. Le Plateau is either an incubator or an accelerator for them, depending on their stage of maturity.

• Combined SG/start-up projects or POC (proof of concept) projects contracted for within the business units are jointly created with two teams, on a full-time basis over short timeframes.

• External start-ups from various sectors, filtered and recommended either by the Group’s experts within its business units, or by our ecosystem partners — including investment funds. Hosted for a maximum period of 6 months, they benefit from a free hosting contract without consideration. They are able to benefit from part of the support put in place for internal start-ups, within the framework of their residency on Le Plateau (pitch help, entrepreneur in residence, etc.) There are currently two types: start-ups with which collaboration is obvious, such as fintechs, assurtechs, legaltechs, to develop quick wins or directly be in the “how?”, and start-ups from other sectors that open the world up to us, provide a culture, show us tomorrow’s global issues and encourage us to think about the true meaning of our actions in a changing world, our “why?”. Le Plateau pledges to rapidly establish contact with operational departments that could be interested in initiating joint projects with these start-ups.

• Partners in residence, who use Le Plateau to develop their projects alongside our SG teams. They can provide support to teams through discussions in order to foster networking with the ecosystem or accompany certain projects.

Website : https://www.societegenerale.com/en/digital-and-innovation/open-innovation/le-plateau

Twitter : @LePlateauSG

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