Audencia's Alumni Magazine

Sylvie Davila (Exec MBA 10) belongs to the group of graduates holding a double degree and, although she initially had her sights set on a career in biology, she was converted to becoming an entrepreneur following her studies at the school.  After obtaining a Doctorate in Biology along with a few years’ experience at Siemens Healthcare, in 2009 Sylvie Davila joined the Executive MBA programme, with a view to developing her managerial skills.  Eighteen months down the line saw her armed with a greater understanding of the entire range of business professions and a burning desire to set up her own start-up.

She went on to hone her concept over the next seven years spent working with Keosys, an SME based in Nantes, where she specialised in medical imaging.   

Setting up a company is really a decision that takes time to come to fruition”, she states clearly from the outset, while acknowledging "that after 15 years" professional experience, it is hard to leave behind the comfort of being a salaried employee with the regular paycheque and status that comes with it.

Since September 2017, Hera-Mi, the start-up that she heads up with the radiologist Bruno Scheffer has become part of the Centrale-Audencia-Ensa incubator.  With the support of their R&D team, they are set to revolutionise breast cancer care which affects almost 55,000 women in France every year.  The software tool they are developing, protected by patents, makes it possible to accelerate the radiological diagnosis of breast cancer and it will be presented to the profession in October during the French Day of Radiology.

In June 2017, the start-up entered the capital of the Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest, the Institute for Cancer Research in western France, and has just successfully raised capital for the second time with the input of Central Innovation, from the tripartite fund of Audencia Alumni, Audencia Business School, CCI Nantes Saint-Nazaire and its technical director.  It is about to receive additional funding, to the tune of 500,000 euros, to strengthen its R&D team and implement its marketing and sales strategy.

The fact that the incubator is working alongside the project is confidence-inspiring to investors. Honorary loans, bank loans, and funding from the BPI, all contribute to supporting the fledgling company in its growth.

If she were to pass on some top tips to any students out there itching to set up their own business, Sylvie Davila would tell them to “go for it because there’s a whole ecosystem in place eager to help you establish whether you have a potential market and to let you know if your economic model has legs.  As a young graduate, you have fewer financial constraints and no family depending on you, so just take the plunge, and don’t go thinking you’re too young!”

 

Caroline Lefévère, on behalf of the Audencia Alumni team

What if the ideals of equality and liberty encapsulated by May ’68 were in fact the major cause of the decline in the French education system and growing inequality in schools?

Our school system is now, as pointed out in a PISA study, the most inegalitarian of all the OECD countries, that is to say one where a student’s socio-economic background is a direct predictor of their educational achievement.  At the same time, around 20% of young people are illiterate when they leave school.

In light of these findings, when Isegoria invited the philosopher François-Xavier Bellamy to the campus on 21 March to be their guest speaker, he challenged students to reflect on their educational legacy. 

According to him, May ’68 brought into focus an equation which is obvious to everyone concerned:  authority is a threat to our valued liberty.  The greater the authority, the less freedom there is.  The passing down of knowledge, intrinsically authoritarian, could be viewed as a yoke which imprisons and alienates man.  This thinking, particularly poignant in an age where a simple Smartphone gives us direct access to a whole range of quasi limitless knowledge, knowledge may be regarded as alienating and cumbersome baggage.

Yet, for the philosopher this would be overlooking the fact that, unlike animals, man is a mediator:  his freedom is made possible because someone else passed onto him the knowledge of how to accomplish that which is special and natural within him.  Therefore, without the transference of knowledge there can be no real democracy.  Given this, as a matter of urgency we should be rehabilitating this transfer of knowledge.

At a time when everyone is talking about managerial ethics, the idea of introducing ethics or philosophy-related courses at Audencia is gaining ground.  

Why not? questions François Macé (GE 79), founding member of the Audencia des Dirigeants de l’Ouest Club, which brings together leaders in western France.  “Many students have already studied philosophy in their final year of sixth-form and also during their studies for entry into the Grandes Ecoles.  Pursuing this teaching at the school, by opening the way for courses on ethical leadership and conduct could enable students to hone their analytical and managerial skills for their future occupation.  This would also mark new ground, breaking away from the current educational landscape of prestigious universities.

Caroline Lefévère, on behalf of the Audencia Alumni team

Since last November, Audencia has received 2 awards honouring the quality of its digital ecosystem, of which we are all immensely proud:

• firstly, the Prix d’Honneur, awarded by COM-ENT last November
• then 3rd place in the Grand Prix Digital Strategies 2018, on 21 March this year

So what sort of digital ecosystem do we have?

Following recent changes to our brand architecture and corporate identity, in July 2016 the number of Audencia’s websites skyrocketed from 1 to 35 with the purpose of allowing surfers, alumni, students, prospective students, teaching staff and partners to benefit from a user-centred experience, where each website is specifically tailored towards a target group.

Each department and each programme now has its own subdomain (e.g., bachelors.audencia.com, entreprises.audencia.com), hence its own content to run. 

A few facts and figures, the Audencia galaxy comprises:

• 35 institutional websites
• 1 intranet
• 1 content management tool
• 2 websites hosting students/graduates
• 23 student association websites, 11 blogs
• representing  + 100,000 visitors / year

Therefore, it was necessary to build a simple and efficient ecosystem in order to boost content and deliver an improved web experience.

For the past couple of years we have concentrated on coming up with new tools:

October 2016

• Launch of PANKA, a single interface for content management with multi authoring tools enabling staff at Audencia to create articles, e-mags (like this one), then to publish, file, and share them across all websites and social media networks belonging to the group.
• + 4,000 articles produced since October 2016, + 2 million words facilitating natural referencing

January 2017

• The first online digital Annual Report with advantages including that of having enhanced content and being more reader-friendly, ergonomic, and sustainable.You can view all this online with supporting images and video footage to boot.
• + 1 ton of paper saved, + 9 000 sessions

March 2017

• Launch of the TOGETHER website that you have all come to know and love: the new community platform for graduates, enabling you to network, interact, discover, get back in touch with other alumni, keep in the loop with news from the network, and lots more besides.
• + 8 000 new accounts set up in the space of 1 year, + 800 alumni back on the scene, + 120 000 sessions

TOGETHER

We are counting on your continued support to help develop these tools and would love to hear from you, so please drop us a line.

Looking forward to meeting you online very soon,

Emmanuel Pierson, on behalf of the Audencia communication team

How do we prepare students for jobs which do not yet exist? In response to this fundamental question, the Centrale - Audencia - ENSA Alliance Nantes, Manpower Group and Orange have joined forces under the umbrella of The HR Forecasting Cirlcle to publish the 9th HR Forecasting Handbook on the hybridisation of skills.

This handbook is the fruit of shared reflections from 70 contributors including HR professionals and experts working alongside an economic forecaster. It is based on three main observations:

• Between a third and 70% of future professions are as yet unknown.
• Fast-moving technological progress can rapidly lead to skill obsolescence in certain areas, even though these skills have at times been acquired at high cost.
• Finally, innovation emerges at the intersection of disciplines and skills.

Given this context, how can we continue to foster excellence and offer adapted training in a world that is changing at such a ferocious pace?

As a matter of urgency, we need to bring to the fore these hybrid profiles which have the capacity to shape tomorrow’s world.  

The taskforce at the origin of this handbook firstly worked on deconstructing certain popular misconceptions on hybrid personality types. It is commonly assumed that hybrid profiles are difficult to manage, ultra-connected, multi-skilled, and that they are quick learners of complex concepts. 

On the contrary, this booklet teaches us that the hybrid profile is one which calls into play several forms of intelligence where the individual is an “expert” in being self-aware and has a mastery of interpersonal relations.

The handbook explores five factors for change which can be expected over the coming years: robotics, neurosciences, the quest for meaning, new forms of work organisation, and knowledge relations. In addition, it elaborates possible scenarios.

This forecasting dimension makes it possible “to call into question one’s own fundamental beliefs, to put on hold judgements about the future, and to identify new ways of forward thinking” according to Nicolas Minvielle, Director of Audencia’s MS Marketing Design and Creation in a recent article for Le Monde.

Audencia has been a trailblazer on these issues and was indeed the first school to offer joint engineering-management courses, thus demonstrating the extent to which the hybridisation of skills is part of the school’s DNA. There are a plethora of initiatives in this area: Citylab, Alliance Week, which gathered together 1,000 students from all three schools in March to get them working together in an interdisciplinary manner on educational projects.

Browse the HR Forecasting Handbook

Do you have a “hybrid profile”? Would you be interested in reflecting on tomorrow’s labour market and skills?

Contact us ! 

Françoise Marcus and Caroline Lefévère, on behalf of the Audencia team

Audencia has seen significant growth over the past 10 years: new programmes, increased student intakes, internationalisation, and lots more besides.

For graduates from the Bachelor, Specialised or International Masters, from SciencesCom to ExecEducation, it’s not always easy to feel a sense of belonging to the same network, to forge connections with other graduates who clearly have the same school in common but also followed such different courses.

Opening up a world of opportunities, while still having due regard to specific characteristics

Nonetheless, this is exactly what Audencia Alumni is proposing: the challenge of bringing together all graduates under the same single powerful network while recognising and respecting what sets them apart. A network making it easy to get in touch with others, reaching beyond course or class year borders, while still allowing graduates to get together in small groups, just among friends, as and when necessary.

How then could it be possible to enhance the mutual support and synergies between the Bachelor or Audencia SciencesCom networks and Audencia Alumni? A good way of visualising this is by picturing those ski resorts which connect with each other in order to provide a larger ski area. This way skiers get the best of both worlds by keeping a cosy, charming small resort without giving up the expanse and technicality of a large ski area.

Audencia Alumni is made greater by the sum of its individual internal parts and remains rich in its diversity.  The network provides promising prospects which are enhanced by the complementarity of the programmes offered at the school. To date, 75% of Audencia Bachelor graduates are pursuing their studies, but testify to still having a strong attachment to their first school, spontaneously coming back to it once they have gained employment, explains Matthieu Bonnamy, Employment, Internship and Careers Coordinator for Audencia Bachelor, of which he is himself a graduate (BACH 08).  He reminds us that: the project of building a great network is an opportunity to capitalise on the intrinsic characteristics of each person, and in the case of the Bachelor, to strengthen its regional presence.

 

“Take that first step, come and meet us!”

This point of view is shared by Mathias Oléron (SCOM 16):  “As a recent graduate from Audencia SciencesCom working in London, I joined the UK Chapter via the Together platform, then took part in my first afterwork in April 2017. Initially, I came out of sheer curiosity but now I have become a regular at these meet-ups. There’s a mixture of topics from career talks to expat considerations and we also share top tips. I would urge every graduate to take the plunge. We’d love to meet up with you!”

The great Audencia Alumni network is a fabulous source of inspiration to make the most of our professional practices. After benefiting from a large spectrum of alumni feedback by attending various conferences, I myself took part in a professional capacity at the Audencia SciencesCom conference speaking on the value of emotion in customer experience. The diversity of profiles in the network is a real asset!” concludes Fabien Sabattini (GE 09), Customer Experience and CRM Manager at Nexity.

Matthieu Bonnamy and Mélanie Bosc, on behalf of the Audencia Bachelor and Audencia SciencesCom teams

These troublemakers of the decade need no further introduction: Lush, Michel et Augustin, Innocent, le Slip Français, BlaBlaCar, Back Market and company. Each of them, in their own field, has managed to turn the current system on its head, bringing a breath of fresh air and making humour work in their favour! These brands who have (very) successfully carved out their place in the market, are also helping shake up practices and ways of thinking which were previously well established among professionals and consumers alike… 

Woolly hats on fruit juice, underpants on the net

On entering these ferociously competitive markets, no one would have fancied their chances of establishing a place for themselves in the market. So what can we put their success down to? They all have one thing in common:  strong positioning and product differentiation. Some of them have chosen to focus on usage rather than the market (BlaBlaCar, Airbnb, Back Market…). For others, commitment takes precedent over product offering (Lush, Le Slip Français, Innocent…).

Welcome to cool consumption

Once their positioning has been established – at times for minor innovations – they are often aided or made possible by digital technology which facilitates relations and cuts out the middlemen. However, the common link for all these brands is primarily their ability to strike up an alternative dialogue with us the consumers; they treat us differently without adopting the aura of authority common to the big established brands, in a casual way, more often than not making use of humour, while seamlessly bringing us into their ecosystem. This attitude, in stark contrast to a position, conveys a mindset and a style which establishes a new relationship between the brand and the consumer. And this makes all the difference.

The brand next door

Faced with gargantuan supply and relentless appeals, it goes without saying that the consumer feels a sense of frustration. To this we can add feelings of stress due to limited purchasing power and the knowledge that his actions have an impact on the environment or the working conditions of others.  In short, he is all too often in a state of cognitive dissonance, of discomfort in with regard to consumption.

It’s within this context that these brands first appeared on the scene and were hailed a breath of fresh air. They bring with them a simple, pleasant, fair, and unpretentious quality, potentially bringing a sense of meaning and commitment. By putting themselves on a level with consumers, remaining respectful of their world and aspirations, they bring satisfaction and a human dimension to the relationship which, although a business transaction, represents much more than this in the eyes of the consumer.

Discover the full article on the "Monde des Grandes Ecoles" 

Florence Touzé, on behalf of the Audencia SciencesCom team

The development of consumption, marketing and brands towards greater responsibility is at the heart of the research carried out by Florence Touzé, Communication and Brands course coordinator at Audencia SciencesCom and co-holder of the Audencia CSR Chair.

She shares her work and thoughts on the blog Marketing-Implicatif

On 10 April this year, Florence Touzé alongside Maud Lesieur (GE 03) co-hosted a roundtable discussion: “Responsible Marketing, how to make the shift.” This event was attended by over 50 graduates who enriched the debate with their many pertinent questions.

Venezuelan Luis Prato (MBA 08) ’s CV reads like a travel guide. At 38 years old he has already worked in nearly a dozen countries throughout South America, North America, Africa and Europe. He is currently working in Germany for British multinational GKN as Director of Commercial Program Management (Powertrain Services). Today, Germany is the country that Luis returns to after each international mission and Düsseldorf is the city he calls home.

To have experienced so many countries, cultures and languages in just 16 years gives the impression that Luis might be in a hurry to reach the finishing line. It is almost hard to believe that the key advice he likes to give current students at Audencia is patience!

“I believe that everyone gets their opportunity if they are patient and wait for their moment to make an impact”, he says. Knowing how to wait for that moment requires a certain amount of discipline and the nerve to seize the opportunity when it arises. Luis speaks from experience… After graduating with an MBA from Audencia, a mission he led in French-speaking Africa was offered to him “on the premise that I had graduated from a school in France although my French wasn’t great at the time.” he says. But the mission was a success and led to more opportunities. Luis then went to Angola where Portuguese is the official language and Nigeria where it is English. “When you work with multicultural teams, the more languages you master the easier it is.”

Luis continues to make wise career moves and maintain a steep learning curve both academically and professionally. We look forward to seeing where his patience, and perseverance, will take him next.

Katie François, on behalf of the Audencia Alumni team

For the past two years, the Audencia Foundation has increased its fundraising through the Class Gift initiative (a collective donation from a graduating class). Last year, the Grande Ecole class of 2017 raised 4770€ to support student projects.

After a call for proposals and a full day of pitching, 4 projects were selected out of the 31 submitted:

• Surf Ouest Park: a surfing complex in a pool with artificially generated waves
• Antiopea: services and products for certifying and making the in-company transfer of information and documents secure
• Solifood: facilitating the integration of refugees through work by offering meals from their country to Audencia students
• Impul'S tour: the first European tour of sustainable initiatives in zero emission cars to illustrate ecological transition

The Class Gift donors voted for their favourite project and they chose Solifood! With more than 46% of the votes, Sixtine Labusquière and her team will receive the full Class Gift fund of 4770€.

In the coming months, Solifood will offer Audencia students meals for 5.50€ cooked by refugees from the association ‘Le Goût des Autres’. The aim of this project is to create a link between refugees and Audencia students by allowing them to discover other cultures through their food. It will also promote Audencia's CSR identity and develop the action and impact of the Enactus association.

Ultimately, Solifood will offer meals in partnership with various associations working for the professional integration of those who are excluded from society. Students on the Jonelière university campus and, in due course, residents of Nantes will also be able to take part in the initiative.

Solifood is a social and responsible project that is taking shape thanks to the Class Gift Fund!

The 2018 Class Gift again shows that more and more great ideas are emerging at Audencia and that students need funding to make them a reality. 

Carole Deniel, on behalf of the Audencia Alumni team

Audencia is proud to welcome its latest chair, as established on 5 April this year: the Finance for Innovation Chair. The purpose of this chair is to develop a better understanding of the processes and financial challenges facing businesses and innovatory projects. Spotlight on an initiative which is unprecedented in Europe.

Carine Girard, Benjamin Le Pendeven and Gilles Certhoux, are all lecturer-researchers at Audencia with varied professional profiles.  One has a background in finance and corporate governance, another in innovation and entrepreneurship and one comes from a Business Angel background.  However, they have managed to pool their resources and build bridges between their respective disciplines which has resulted in fruitful collaboration like that of the Abbé Grégoire Innovation Days.

“They have held lively and heated debates on equity crowdfunding and more generally on the funding and governance of the future”, so establishing a chair devoted to finance for innovation seemed the next logical step.

There are four main lines of research:

• The development of start-ups

“Despite being at the centre of many research studies, to date few bodies of work have enabled us to gain any real insight into understanding the various ways these structures develop”, remarks Carine Girard. “Pinpointing all the underlying explanatory factors before testing their validity by conducting empirical studies on a European scale (by establishing a monitoring centre) is more valuable than ever.” This would indeed prove ground-breaking.

• The funding of social innovation

The chair will be researching a novel financial tool: Social Impact Bonds. In contrast to start-ups, there is limited availability of academic studies on the factors explaining the success of Social Impact Bonds and their impact in terms of governmental policies, once their action has been finalised. The goal is therefore to fill this gap in academic knowledge so as to draw up some guidelines.

• Financing equity crowdfunding

Another smart financial tool which the chair will be focusing on.

• Investor – Entrepreneur relations

This is the stand out field of expertise for researchers involved in this chair, the quality of which has been recognised by the scientific, academic and professional communities.

A chair based on co-construction

The chair already has three corporate partners: Early Metrics, the European Investment Fund and Sowefund. PhD students will soon be joining our team in a bid to strengthen the momentum which is already underway. What’s more, co-construction and the hybridisation of skills are core values which our three lecturer-researchers feel strongly about. This philosophy is indeed shared by Audencia who are championing both interdisciplinary approaches and innovation within the framework of its 2020 strategic plan.

Marie Beden, on behalf of the Audencia team

For two years running, Nantes has come out on top in a study published by the French weekly newspaper l’Express in its ranking of the ‘Most desirable towns and cities to work in’.

The metropolitan centres are losing ground

While it’s true that the vast majority of Audencia Bachelor graduates settle in Nantes on completing their studies, very few alumni from Audencia’s other programmes, starting with the Grande Ecole programme, choose to begin their professional career in the capital city of the Pays de la Loire region.

Large numbers are heading overseas and even more are settling in and around Paris, which remains a strong magnet for young graduates.   

Yet, here we are a few years down the line and the tide now seems to be turning!  The large metropolitan centres, in particular Paris, are becoming less appealing to seasoned executives, who have since become parents and are now aspiring to improve their quality of life.

In the report, Rennes, Limoges and Angers have been ranked the top three French towns to live in according to 15 or so indicators ranging from hours of sunshine to cultural offerings, and air quality, access to healthcare or safety.  The Grand Ouest has played a blinder in the rankings since, alongside Rennes and Angers, Brest (5th), Lorient (7th) and Nantes (9th) are also accredited in this list.

Live better, without having to give up on your professional career

Clearly living well is the objective here, but for these young professionals, a strong labour market also remains an essential criterion when choosing their career destination.  By tapping into indicators such as the unemployment rate, employment trends or accessible rail transport options, Nantes (1st) and Rennes (2nd) have been identified by l’Express as the top two most appealing French cities with regard to employment prospects.

This new dynamic has been confirmed by Godefroy de la Bourdonnaye, Regional Director Badenoch & Clark:

"The attractiveness of Nantes owes much to its sustained economic activity. The volume of executive hires is booming. Moreover, there is already a beginning of a shortage in certain categories of functions. However, to find the most beautiful opportunities, it is sometimes necessary to be ready for a daily trip of 30 to 45 minutes because the basins of Saint-Nazaire and La Roche sur Yon are also very dynamic. In Nantes, many recruitments are not advertised. My tip: remember to activate your network and make yourself known to recruitment agencies!"

With this return to the west in mind, feel free to rally up your Audencia Alumni network.  With Close To Me, our new geolocation feature on Together, or within communities, not forgetting the ever dynamic Nantes Chapter, you are sure to find fellow Audencians to forge connections with.

Florence Alix-Gravellier, on behalf of the Audencia Alumni team