Claus Hirzmann - Competitive Strategies for investing in innovation and agility

What are the strategies for investing in innovation? How to provide access to opportunity while managing risks carefully? I used to think that the Net Present Value (NPV) metric was the best to enable value generation while minimizing risks. But, innovation investment expert, Claus Hirzmann thinks otherwise. He told me why in a recent conversation at Vivatech. It’s all here ! Please introduce yourself…

Categories Digital Transformation

From Startups to Scale-ups


Maxime Baffert - VivaTech

How to create scale-ups in Europe? What should Europe do to foster a promising technology ecosystem? How to evolve the blossoming startup ecosystem in France to one of Scale-ups? Which current startup stands the highest change of turning into a scale-up ? Why is it that Europe has, so far, failed to generate numerous unicorns while Silicon Valley—a small area of only 2.7 million…

Categories Digital Transformation

Why create a GAFA Tax?


Bruno Le Maire - GAFA Tax - copyright - Le Parisien

Why has France embarked upon the project of taxing Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple and devised a tax that is a specific to digital players also known as the GAFA Tax? And why has France decided to go it alone, despite its long-held belief in European cohesion and unity? I addressed this and more with France 24 journalist, Julia Sieger. I/ Why is there…

Categories Digital Transformation, In english

Corporate innovation is changing in form and process


How to innovate in large companies? This simple question turns out to be much more complex than expected, as global players are focused on executing a proven business model rather than searching for a new one whose profitability is untested. These are some of the issues that Andreas Page, Senior Manager in charge of Digital Business Development at Swisscom and myself discussed recently. Presentation…

Categories investment and innovation

Amazon Almighty : what will stop the all market disruptor?


France 24 - Guillaume Villon de Benveniste - 1200 milliards sur la table - Michalon - Author

The Debate on France 24 On December 24, 2018, I took part in “The Debate” of France 24, the French BBC. With a few other experts, we talked about the long view on Amazon and we wondered whether the company was overvalued, and how it is changing our day-to-day lives. I will not go into the details that we discussed during the show. The question…

Categories investment and innovation

Europe is loosing the Technology battle


In December 2018, I was invited to be part of the Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI). As discussed in a previous post in French, the Jedi organization aims at reproducing America’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in Europe. Technology leadership Today, according to André Loesekrug-Pietri, the founder of JEDI, Europe is “losing the technological battle”. As shown below, eight out of the 10…

Digital technologies should create approximately $1210, billion by 2025 according to seven investment reports. The document below shows how valuable is distributed by technology and by industry. It also focuses on what it means for a company‘s value chain. I show that every single segment in the value chain, from resource acquisition to distribution, will benefit from digital innovation. In addition, I focus on…

Which applications stand out as the most thought-provoking? Where should we put our money if we want to generate over 15 Bn in revenue in 2025? How do they utilize fresh technologies in order to solve real economic problems reaping profit? I address some of these questions below, as they appear important to many including: Experts looking for evidence that technical know-how delivers monetary…

What technologies should innovation companies select to pursue growth ? Where should forward-thinking leaders put their capital, talent and energy ? Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality stand as some of the most trendy techs. But is their value beneath the hype ? If so, how much, in what industry and on which use case ? Addressing these matters prove crucial to: Investors looking to select…

As digital technologies should pave the way to $1210 billion in value by 2025, bankers will be playing a dual role. First of all, they will be investing across many industries in order to optimize production chains and increase overall capital efficiency. Second of all, they’ll be revamping their own business as the financial sector should generate $108 Bn in value by 2025. But where…