AXA: a global platform for collaborative innovation

April 27, 2016  by Matthew Deleneuville

With the approach of the Night Director Digital, on June 16, Frederic Tardy, in charge of digital strategy at the French insurer AXA, presented the draft of which he is most proud.

On 16 June, the Night Manager Digital reward the best CDO year. Ahead of the event, the JDN presents 20 projects which are most proud of a selection of CDOs that have one goal: to lead the digital transformation of their business.

Project Overview
AXA launched in 2014 the project “Start-in”, a collaborative innovation platform for its 161,000 employees in 59 countries where it is installed. An initiative launched by the teams Innovation of French insurer in collaboration with the US company Bright Idea and driven by Frederic Tardy, Chief Marketing and Distribution Officer in charge of digital strategy at the French insurer. For its 2015 edition, it focuses on the themes of “customer experience” and “auto-entrepreneurs and SMEs”. 815 innovative ideas (620 for the first theme and 195 for the second) were submitted and 22 000 employees voted, more than double the previous year.

Challenge for the company
“Our ambition is that there is more hierarchical process in innovation. Any type of employee, at any level of the organization is concerned. It is a democratic process that creates a strong culture of innovation in all services. These international projects, with ideas coming from the 45 countries where we operate, value transversality and diversity in the group. ”

The project, step by step
The process was launched in January and employees have until late February to submit their ideas. This first selection phase gathered 26,000 votes in 2015, employees can select multiple projects that they like.

“We get so rankings based on the number of votes and a team of 150 people identified the four best projects for which we assign a prototyping budget. Three successive juries then meet in April, May and June to elect large winners, “says Frédéric Tardy. A first jury consists of AXA employees from different countries, a second experts outside the company and finally comes the executive committee “for there to be a real impact on the group,” he said.

Throughout their journey, participants are accompanied to formalize their best ideas and prepare their presentation.

This year, one from Switzerland project has attracted particular attention: an application, from a simple picture of an object taken to specify the user if he has insurance that covers and soon offer him an insurance estimate if it is not covered.

Why he is most proud
“When we started the project in 2014, I never thought that so many employees participate. Often the digital transformation is focused on a few individuals, but I think to be successful it must be humble and get everyone involved. In the 2000s, companies were creating separate and well-defined services for innovation. today there is a change of business model and we ship all levels of the organization in this adventure.”

Company: AXA
Number of participating employees in 2015: 22,000
Number of employees: open program to 161,000 employees
Project cost: EUR 600,000
Generated savings: NC

Original Article