Hello Karim. What is the importance of innovation for Tractebel?
The energy landscape is undergoing a major transformation: the ways we produce, consume and manage energy are being reinvented. Increasing volumes of renewable energy are being incorporated into energy systems, energy sources are increasingly decentralized and digitization is affecting a wide range of processes and energy flows.
Tractebel, as an operational entity of the ENGIE Group, has to consider and respond to new needs that arise from these changes. Tractebel’s business is engineering, and we are reinventing our products to meet these new challenges. This is where innovation makes sense.
Innovation must be seen as a process – a state of mind even – and can’t just be a matter for a few specialists!
Since the beginning of the year, the Energy Transition department has included a small team that is responsible for leading and coordinating innovation throughout the company. The principle is to collect new ideas from employees through an ideas box, to identify those with sufficient potential from the business model perspective, and to support them in getting to the product stage.
Innovation Week fit into this framework at Tractebel, with our main concern being to strengthen the belief that innovation involves everyone, at all levels of the company.
How was Tractebel involved Innovation Week?
We identified three main areas:
- Each business line (business team) presented innovative projects that were displayed on kakemonos placed in the office lobby. The goal here was to allow all of our employees to learn about innovative projects that had already been initiated and the role they themselves could play in sharing innovation.
- A presentation of the Power Corner project, also in the lobby. This incubated project involving a micro energy community is currently in the deployment phase, with a pilot in Tanzania, and helps provide electricity in the most remote areas. A virtual tour of the village and the technical installation was available throughout the week.
- Finally, innovation-themed conferences were held every lunchtime. They featured internal and external speakers on specific topics.
Note also that each of these conferences was presented by members of Tractebel’s Executive Committee, emphasizing the importance of innovation for Tractebel.
What is your assessment of how the week went?
It was obviously positive, with particularly good levels of participation for some of the conference lunches in particular. For me, another highlight was the involvement and availability of all of our Top Management, which highlighted how important our focus on Innovation is.
The week was also an opportunity to brainstorm and exchange views on the importance of innovation in our processes.
Everyone must be aware of the essential aspect of innovation for the company. It’s everyone's business.
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