2017 Paris Digital Workshop-Summary

Paris Digital Workshop

The cold climate of Paris made for a remarkable backdrop for the second edition of Consulting Quest’s Parisian workshop 2017. The event attendees had the opportunity to discover, or rediscover, Serge Grudzinski, who offered a very humorous introduction and a pragmatic approach to digital evolution and his vision of companies facing change.

Martin Schoessler – Causa Consulting:

The first speaker of the day who presented his vision on new forms of consulting in the age of the platform economy around the challenge: “We are going to focus on technology, and how new technology will change the way we live and create value in our professions in more fundamental ways.”

The underlying principle of the presentation was the culture of collaboration and how we utilize the latest technology to enhance it.

Laurent Coulon – Theano Advisors:

A digital veteran, he presented his vision of the revolution through 7 examples:

• We are in a VUCA world,
• Innovate or be Disruptive
• Capture or Create Value
• Transversality: Unleash your Potential
• Bring People with you
• Data is the New Gold
• Map your Digital Innovation trip

Laurent’s presentation was complemented with inspiring examples of how the digital age is changing the business landscape. One example of this is large tech companies such as Apple, Amazon & Google, which have formidable capital and customer bases, are now exploiting these strengths to enter into the banking sectors.

The first E-CEO, Alain Mathecowitsch:

He greatly motivated the audience with his passion, pragmatism, and professionalism. He took questions from the contributors in the room on his latest assignment as the first E-CEO or how he inspired an established global company to embrace digitization. His speech helped enrich our morning discussion.

After a well-deserved lunch, the showman :

Pierre-Edouard Couturier-Solvay:

Pierre-Edouard gives the audience his vision of digitization in the chemical industry, as well as its pitfalls. The presentation illustrated that the challenges facing the chemical industry are actually similar to what other industries face. Pierre-Edouard clearly demonstrated that even though the industry is moving towards digitization, it still has a long way to go. The chemical industry is a mature one with a rich historical culture. But companies like Solvay are making good progress, slowly but surely.

Ferhat Eryurt – Camelot:

We concluded the day with a fabulous presentation on Smart Contracts: The real digital revolution in Procurement.

Ferhat explained why blockchain technology is a concept that had benefits that are well worth understanding for procurement departments. He was able to shed light on What is Blockchain? – How it works? His presentation ended with a discussion about the use of smart contracts and how they can be utilized in today’s changing landscape.

We want to thank all the speakers and participants! We are already giving you an invitation to join us in Paris, around the same time next year for a third edition!