A Path to the Silver Economy
At Pathfinder, we recently held our fifth ‘Path to’ event dedicated to the Silver Economy, part of a series of talks on how the future is being shaped in several industries, featuring handpicked players from the corporate and startup worlds. We decrypted the sector’s trends and invited our audience to then identify existing problems and pitch innovative business solutions.
Stay tuned for our sixth episode on September 25th at 6:30pm at The Family Paris, where we will focus on the Media industry. With industry leaders and startups, we will break down the Media value chain and understand the different trends affecting and shaping its future.
On stage, the round-table was led by Joséphine Simeray, a former entrepreneur who co-created Cityzen Mobility (a driver service platform for seniors) and who is Pathfinder’s specialist in Silver Economy matters. Also participating in the talk were Renaud Montin (Chief Transformation Officer of Eram and general director of ParadeConnect, an internal startup), Simon Vouillot (co-founder of Ages&Vie, an SMB that has recently joined the Korian group), Guillaume Desnoës (co-founder of the startup Alenvi) and Sébastien Podevyn (Director of France Silver Eco).
We are getting older, my friends
Today the world’s population is passing through a period of demographic transition. Indeed, as the birth rate decreases and life expectancy increases, the proportion of older people gets bigger. That is what we’re seeing nowadays, given that there are 962 million people who are 60 years of age or older in the world, corresponding to 13% of the global population. This phenomenon is particularly notable in Europe, where 25% of the inhabitants are 60+.
In 2050, the French population will count 22.3 million people 60 or older (today there are 15 million). That means one in every three individuals will be considered a senior. Today, when analyzing the life expectancy in good health, France’s indicator is lower than the European average. Among women, it is 64.1 years, and among men, 62.7 years, while the continent’s average is 64.2 and 63.5 years, respectively. When compared to Sweden, Europe’s leader, the difference is notable: almost ten years of difference (73.3 years for women and 73 years for men) (Eurostat, 2019). Sébastien Podevyn, from France Silver Eco, said that this is related to French cultural aspects, such as the fact that people usually have a “medical vision” of the elderly. Thus they invest more in it only later in life, when the difficulties have already appeared, rather than investing in prevention.
So what is the Silver Economy?
According to Sébastien Podevyn, “the Silver Economy is everything that helps the issues related to the population’s aging”. However, it is not a classical market: it involves several different players, including the government, financial institutions (such as banks and insurance companies), universities and companies (from startups to big corporations). Also, this value chain extends itself to many different industries once it incorporates diverse necessities. Sometimes, there are even some crossovers between these industries.
Ready, aim, fire!
What is being old? As Joséphine said, ‘Defining the Silver Economy target is almost impossible. Today talking about “seniors” is complicated… Are we a senior at 45 years old? 65? Maybe 75? We don’t know it very well.” This population’s needs are very diverse as they evolve through time. We can’t say an 80-year-old’s needs are the same as those of a 60-year-old.
Simon Vouillot, Ages&Vie co-founder, works on developing adapted homes for the elderly that allow them to maintain their autonomy. In his case, he says that he works with the “fourth age”. Rather than coming up with a concept based on laws and norms, he started from a very personal approach: “What kind of life do I want for my parents, for myself, as we get old?” That’s how they created a co-living residence for seven aged people who can count with life enrichment assistants 24/7.
Sébastien Podevyn added, “It is an intellectual revolution: we used to think of the elderly as being very passive, they are actually demanding, their needs should be answered.” The new elderly are composed of people called “baby boomers”, who were born between 1946 and 1964. They are usually independent, disciplined and goal-centered people (and extremely conscious of their needs). Moreover, their economic power can’t be forgotten. Indeed, they are the population group that has consumed the most during the last decade. On the other hand, this market segment is not that targeted, such as the Millennials for example. One of the challenges, according to Renaud Montin from Eram, is anticipating those needs before the arrival of aging’s complications, which means prevention!
Startups: It isn’t all about tech
It is almost automatic: we think ‘startup’, and so technology. However, in this value chain, we can find many different solutions and they don’t always involve the use of digital tools. Let’s take the examples of ParadeConnect and Alenvi.
ParadeConnect used advanced technology to create shoes capable of automatically determining when someone has fallen and then calling their emergency contacts. To do so, they use captors and algorithms to determine the angles that detect the fall. Additionally, the shoes are 100% autonomous, not needing another application — which could block their use, since not every individual in this group is digitally literate.
Meanwhile, the social startup Alenvi works with the humanization in the caregiving of older people who have lost their autonomy. They noted that we do not pay enough attention to those who have direct contact with the user, that is, the life enrichment assistants. They have two different offers. The first one is the home care service, empowering assistants to manage planning together with families. The second one is the education of caregivers from other institutions, focusing on the human dimension. Guillaume Desnoës, one of the co-founders, noted that in the Silver Economy there are a lot of opportunities to innovate in the service sector.
Big companies don’t want to be kept out
As we can see from the ParadeConnect example, traditional companies want to get in the Silver Economy boat too. ParadeConnect is an internal startup from Eram, a traditional shoe brand created in 1927. Now they’re entering this field, investing in technology that offers a new utility but keeping their core skills of producing shoes.
Other important players are governments and financial institutions, such as banks, and insurance companies. They will be responsible for promoting this switch from a purely curative system to a preventive one. While the state will do so through the creation of new laws and norms that will push the industry to adapt, the financial actors will offer solutions that focus on prevention, making investments flow to these new alternatives.
And how do we help do all that at Pathfinder?
Throughout this presentation and workshop, we brought forward one of our big convictions at Pathfinder, which is that all players, and incumbents in particular, should broaden their views and embrace the digital transition by looking at other value chains and learning from the disruptive practices of other corporate players and startups.
Our motto at Pathfinder is to realign the interests of entrepreneurs and big corps. Our clients? Big corps. Our mission? Create their new businesses to rule the digital transition of their value chain. In startup mode. With entrepreneurs.
Stay tuned for our sixth installment about Media industry on September 25th at 6:30 pm at The Family Paris, where we will discuss emergent subjects with industry leaders and startups from Media industry, breaking down value chains and highlighting the different trends affecting and shaping their future.
