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LACROIX TECH Webinars:
the key to success!
04 February 2021
LACROIX
In 2018, LACROIX Group launched the first season of its “LACROIX TECH Webinars”, aimed at all employees. The goal? To provide knowledge and encourage reflection on key topics related to innovation, whether strategic, technological or methodological. This initiative is proving to be a huge success thanks to the investment of the LACROIX TECH community—the sponsor of the project—and the participation of external contributors who have successfully opened the Group up to new horizons.
A taste for learning and challenge: a part of LACROIX’s DNA
In 2018, Sophie Vanwaelscappel, Innovation catalyzer at LACROIX Lab, was given a challenge by her manager: to explain the subject of blockchain to a group of employees.
“A broad and fuzzy subject! The best way to learn is to explain the subject to someone. I wasn’t originally working on digital issues but agreed to take up the challenge. We then carried out the same exercise on Open Data: given the positive results that it generated, the project started and never stopped!” says Sophie.
For the past 3 years, LACROIX TECH has been organising one webinar per month, covering a variety of topics. With a simple one-hour format followed by questions and answers, the initiative is widely adopted by employees who see it as an opportunity to expand their knowledge.
“This then encourages initiative-taking because everyone feels empowered and fully invested in this joint adventure.” adds Sophie.
Key #1: creating groups of shared interest to drive employee innovation
Feeding the curiosity of employees, always in search of ideas, promotes creativity while allowing everyone a sufficient degree of autonomy.
“Participating in webinars is an enriching experience and satisfies the sense of curiosity shared by many LACROIX employees! Too often, we tend to stick to our own areas of expertise: the LACROIX TECH webinars allow us to move away from our day to day work and whet our curiosity. Working in R&D, it is essential for my work environment and the meaning I find in my work to discover new subjects, particularly technological ones! ”
“In R&D it is important to broaden our knowledge by stepping out of our comfort zone to have innovative ideas on a daily basis. Some webinars concern our core business and can meet our direct needs, such as cyber security or RFID & NFC for example. Others open up our perspectives with topics related to our work ‘tools’, such as data visualisation, or by making us (re)discover or explore societal topics such as the webinar carried out with the SMILE project on the region’s air and water quality. These are topics that LACROIX brings to the forefront in terms of our vision, and this gives meaning to our daily work.”
Key #2: cooperating with partners and opening up the ecosystem
While the benefits of webinars are clear for employees, by contributing in particular to their professional development, another advantage lies in the sense of openness they create with our partners both in the industrial sector specific to LACROIX and outside the Group’s usual domains.
Many companies were able to participate in these webinars on key subjects for the future of the Group, thus enabling synergy in terms of knowledge. For example, Orange was one of the speakers on the theme of optical communication.
“LACROIX is a partner of Orange in developing 5G: optical technologies with their high speed and low latency are a good complement to the deployment and uses of 5G. By talking to companies such as LACROIX, I hope that they will be able to gain skills in order to find new businesses in the niche of optical technologies. The benefit is not only business-related: there is also a customer/user benefit by optimising production or by acting on the environment.”
We then witness a win-win exchange: LACROIX thus allows its teams to grow and flourish in their working environment, while being more efficient and motivated:
“Participating in a LACROIX webinar thus allows all employees to discover new technologies and the associated opportunities (new uses and technical performance) while encouraging thoughts on inventing new products and services.” concludes Micheline Perrufel.
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