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Legrand's Digital Transformation Journey

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Legrand's Digital Transformation Journey Digital Leadership Legrand’s journey: how collaboration and culture change have driven new digital innovations An interview with Frédéric Levaux Legrand Frédéric Levaux, Legrand Legrand is a global specialist that offers a range of products and solutions that connect millions of buildings to energy, data, and lighting – from energy distribution to digital infrastructures. With a presence in nearly 90 countries – and a workforce of over 37,000 people – Legrand reported 2017 sales of more than €5.5 billion. As Legrand’s chief digital officer, Frédéric Levaux is responsible for driving digital transformation across the Group. This primarily covers two areas: using digital to improve and transform industrial capabilities at Legrand and using digital to make Legrand a better workplace. An MBA graduate of HEC Paris, Frédéric is a veteran of digital innovation projects and new ventures. He has co-founded several start-ups, including a venture capital- backed mobile software publishing firm. The Capgemini Research Institute spoke with Frédéric to understand more about Legrand‘s digital transformation. 2 Taking Digital Transformation to the Next Level: Lessons from the Leaders Legrand’s digital transformation journey What was the impetus for Legrand’s digital transformation? able to leverage this data to improve the customer experience and identify ways to connect an entire The history of Legrand is a traditional industrial ecosystem. With this experience, we are now able company focused on manufacturing electrical to connect all the dots and accelerate our efforts. switches and outlets in a slow-moving industry. However, I would say that we are still in the first Digital was not on top of the agenda. But everything half of our journey. We are now making sure that changed a few years back with IoT. A big realization everything is connected and that we have a single for us was when Google Assistant and Nest view of our end user and that all the necessary emerged. It showed that a company could come in steps regarding security and privacy are taken from scratch, create a domestic thermostat, and sell into consideration. it directly in what was a traditional value chain that involved the manufacturer, wholesalers, installers, and end users. We reacted very quickly in 2015 by launching the Eliot program, a worldwide program that aims to The history of Legrand is a accelerate the deployment of the IoT traditional industrial company focused within the group’s product range. By on manufacturing electrical switches 2017, Eliot had more than 30 connected and outlets in a slow-moving industry. product families and generated sales Digital was not on top of the agenda. of almost €488 million from But everything changed a few years connected devices. back with the IoT. We reacted very quickly in 2015 by launching the What is so revolutionary about Eliot program, a worldwide program that aims intelligent switches and outlets? to accelerate IoT deployment within the Group’s What’s the benefit to the consumer? product range. By 2017, Eliot had more than 30 connected product families and generated sales of In order to fully answer, you have to understand almost €488 million from connected devices. that connected switches and outlets are part of a larger connected home ecosystem. The fact that a We have a vision that, in the future, all the products switch is connected has little direct impact on the we make today will be connected and interoperable. consumer, however, if you consider that switch or Initiating connected products really started the outlet as a set of intelligent sensors, then their role chain of events. In the beginning, as we got these becomes key. These switches are already present products to market, they started generating data on in every room of your house, they could integrate our end users through apps and websites. We were temperature sensors, air quality sensors, light 3 sensors, and microphones. That data will make your and outlets –you must find ways to differentiate. smart home assistants more intelligent and will also Design is a great way to do it. Our design teams make your home safer by monitoring any electrical now work at the product conception phase with the hazard, for example. Coupled with usage data and engineering teams. artificial intelligence, our products could improve your quality of life tremendously in the home as well We created a Group-level website for collaboration as contribute to substantial energy savings. across design teams in Europe, Asia, India, and the US. These design teams employ a user-centered design approach, which is a framework where Connected switches and things like usability goals and user characteristics outlets are part of a larger are studied at each phase of the design process. For example, what do our users do when they come connected home ecosystem... home from work? What parts of their home do Coupled with usage data and they often touch? The designers think about how artificial intelligence, our products our end users might interact with our products – through voice, touch, or motion – and how they can could improve your quality of life use that information to build designs for new user tremendously in the home as well interfaces. We believe that focusing on voice, touch, as contribute to substantial and motion in this user-centric design approach energy savings.” differentiates us. Over the last few years we What role does design play in have focused on using design as your innovation strategy? a differentiating factor… design Over the last few years, we have focused on using teams employ a user-centered design design as a differentiating factor. When you are in a approach.” very commoditized industry like ours – with switches 4 Taking Digital Transformation to the Next Level: Lessons from the Leaders Leveraging strategic partnerships How important are strategic Based in France, Netatmo had already collaborated partnerships to your with us in 2017 on “Céliane with Netatmo,” our smart digital transformation? switches and power outlets solution. The solution could allow you to build a house with a smart Early on, we saw the need to build a partnership electrical installation from day one and is compatible strategy and so that it is one of the key pillars of our with many technologies, such as Google Assistant acceleration program – building an open ecosystem and Amazon Alexa. where our products are interoperable. We started out with voice assistance because we decided not to build our own voice assistance technology. It is We are partnering with Marriott already out there with Apple, Amazon, and Google International and Samsung to launch and we saw potential for partnering as they do not the hospitality industry’s IoT hotel have the products that we offer. room. The IoT Guestroom Lab explores concepts that have the potential to We have been making sure elevate the guest experience and create that our products are compatible with more efficient hotel room design and whatever system the customer chooses construction.” to put in their house.” Is there a particular initiative We make sure that our products are compatible you are most proud of? with whatever system the customer chooses to put in their house. In addition to technology partners, As a result of our partnerships, we decided to open we have many business partnerships. For example, the ecosystem with a program called, “Works with we are partnering with Marriott International Legrand.” This is a website where any developer can and Samsung to launch the hospitality industry’s download our APIs and build their own app to pilot IoT hotel room. The IoT Guestroom Lab explores with our products. It has been up and running for concepts that have the potential to elevate the a year. Deciding to open everything up was a big guest experience and create more efficient hotel cultural change. Opening the Legrand ecosystem room design and construction. It has multiple has resulted in many more potential partners. responsive IoT systems, creating devices with Through this program, we have carried out projects sophisticated voice control technology that allow the guest to alter lighting, arrange a wake-up call, and even turn the shower on at the desired ‘Works with Legrand,’ is a temperature. The lab helps the industry serve website where any developer can guests better and optimizes hotel operations. download our APIs and build their own app to pilot with our products… We are also working with start-ups to build an ecosystem around the start-up community. Most Deciding to open everything up was a recently, we acquired smart home start-up Netatmo. big cultural change. 5 with companies such as La Poste, Renault, and BNP connecting to switches, but who are now looking Paribas. We see companies and developers who for these sorts of connections and data to build new we would not have thought were interested in services. Promoting internal collaboration and developing talent Are you also navigating a new skills, such as software development and data cultural change in your digital analytics skills. transformation journey? What are some specific initiatives For us, digital means more collaboration internally. that you have in place to In the past, when products were not connected, develop your current talent? employees did not naturally reach out to their colleagues in other departments. This was because In one of our projects, “digital training and skills,” we had very distinct products with sometimes we’ve put in place an internal digital platform to different distribution channels. Now that our train employees on the different steps of digital. In products need to talk to each other, we need to the first phase, we are training 9,000 employees. It is have standard protocols so that the data can be a collection of massive online open courses (MOOC), shared.
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