Innovation: A key factor

Innovation is a key factor in the development and lasting performance of any business.
At Société Générale, it is deeply entrenched in the Group's corporate culture, particularly when it comes to our products and services. Above and beyond any standard institutional innovation, the bank also launched a participatory innovation program in mid-2003 to which all employees are invited to contribute.
The program entitled "Innovons à tous les étages" (Innovation at every level) is aimed at triggering innovative ideas from all our employees, rapidly processing these ideas to transform them into measurable achievements, recognizing and rewarding the best ideas and innovative achievements and encouraging the widespread replication of best practices.
To ensure an initiative takes hold at a local level and that innovative ideas are effectively taken on board, the Group has set up a network of "innovactors". At the end of 2008, the bank's network of innovactors included more than 600 members (compared with 500 at the end of 2007).
Launched in May 2005, Société Générale's global, multilingual intranet website, Innovanet, enables all employees to submit and exchange their innovative ideas and projects. As such, any employee can easily submit an idea and take part in the challenges posted on the site, as well as consult the latest innovative news, ideas and best practices posted by their colleagues. At the same time, the site enables the Group's innovactors and managers to rapidly process any ideas put forward, set up their own challenges as well as monitor their entity's general progress in terms of innovation.
Each idea, whether a best practice or innovative achievement, must be tied to one of the 7 themes which include Sustainable Development and Human Resources.
Innovanet is available in 52 countries and, at the end of 2008, nearly 25,000 employees were registered.
Innovative ideas on the up again in 2008.
The management of innovation through challenges is organized by the Group’s local managers:
  • 121 "innovative idea" challenges and/or brainstorming sessions were held (compared with 32 in 2005),
  • 1,600 innovative ideas were collected (compared with 1,800 in 2007 and 350 in 2005),
  • 24% of these ideas were linked to sustainable development and 11% to human resources.
A few examples:
  • use of photocopiers for print-outs: connecting photocopiers directly to workstations in order to reduce the costs linked to the purchase, maintenance and consumables of local printers,
  • I.D. (Innova Day): launch of an "ideas" challenge for suppliers then organisation of a day event to develop good relations between purchasers, internal clients and suppliers,
  • ESAT on Canal Achats: creation of a specific section for ESAT associations (associations dedicated to helping the disabled find work) with the list of suppliers concerned, a catalogue of their offers, best practices and FAQs.
The duplication of best practices also continued in 2008, with close to 70 best practices repeated throughout the Group (IT software, organisational procedure, reduced paper consumption and waste, etc.).
Result: shared experiences between departments, savings in terms of both time and money.
Today, the database contains between 250 to 300 innovative ideas that can be easily duplicated.