TBS Education offers 17 Master of Science (MSc) programs that provide students with specialized expertise in high-demand industries. These programs combine rigorous academic instruction with practical learning, ensuring that graduates are optimally prepared to tackle industry challenges. With a strong emphasis on international exposure, professional experience, and academic innovation, TBS Education MSc programs prepare students for careers in fields ranging from finance and marketing to supply chain management and aerospace.
TBS Education MSc programs focus on real-world case studies, industry projects, and direct interactions with professionals. Students engage in experiences such as company visits, consulting projects, and international collaborations. The school also provides the opportunity to learn directly from industry experts working in leading companies.
“The MSc Aerospace Management program at TBS Education offered me a unique and transformative learning experience. What stood out the most was the opportunity to learn directly from industry experts working in renowned aerospace companies. Their insights provided real-world perspectives that textbooks alone could never offer, making the learning process truly impactful.” Spurti, student in the MSc Aerospace Management program.
TBS Education maintains strong connections with major companies and research institutions, allowing students to stay updated on industry trends and innovations. Students benefit from visits to key industrial hubs, corporate partnerships, and collaborative projects that enable them to apply their skills in real-world settings.
“TBS Education also allowed us to gain substantial practical knowledge. From case studies to exciting visits like Francazal Airport and Latecoere, every experience added immense value. The collaboration with Paul Sabatier University on the MITAT project was another incredible opportunity to apply our learning. I had the privilege of being selected for the Arctic Winter School in Kiruna, Sweden, hosted by Universeh, where TBS covered my entire trip. Another highlight was leading a project at Airbus, where my team successfully integrated AI into external communications. Additionally, attending the USHAIR event further enriched my exposure to the aerospace industry.” Spurti, student in the MSc Aerospace Management program.
TBS Education’s global approach enables students to acquire the knowledge, practical experience, and professional network needed to succeed in competitive industries. Whether in management, finance, innovation, or marketing, graduates leave with strong expertise and a worldwide network that opens doors to numerous opportunities.
“Throughout the program, I gained not only knowledge but also a solid network in the aerospace industry. The combination of expert-led lectures, case studies, and collaborative projects has significantly shaped my expertise in aerospace management and prepared me to meet industry demands.” Spurti, student in the MSc Aerospace Management program.
With its commitment to academic excellence, industry engagement, and an international perspective, TBS Education’s Master of Science programs prepare students for successful careers in their chosen fields.
The TBS Education bachelor’s in management is a three-year international program, ranked as the #1 Best Bachelor’s degree in France. It grants a recognized French Higher Education Degree (“Grade de Licence”) in International Business and Administration. June, a Norwegian student, shares her experience at TBS Education.
TBS Education’s bachelor’s in management offers an innovative academic curriculum focused on both professionalization and international exposure. By the end of the program, students can complete up to 12 months of internships, gaining valuable professional experience. In their third year, they can choose from nearly 20 specializations such as Digital Business, Innovation Management, Event Management, Fashion & Luxury Management or International Business Management, to tailor their education to their career goals.
“I was searching for business schools in France, and when I discovered TBS Education, I immediately felt it was the right fit. The program offers a well-balanced curriculum that blends theoretical learning with real-world applications, making business education both accessible and engaging. Plus, the school’s strong international reputation and diverse student community made my decision even easier!”
With four campuses in Toulouse, Paris, Barcelona, and Casablanca, along with over 130 partner universities, the Bachelor in Management provides students with a truly global education. Students spend a semester abroad in their second year and can pursue a specialization or a double degree in an international setting.
Courses are taught in English, and with more than 88 nationalities represented on campus, TBS Education offers a genuinely multicultural experience.
“I am really looking forward to taking advantage of the international opportunities that TBS Education provides. It’s an exciting experience that I can’t wait to explore!”
TBS Education hosts numerous student associations that foster engagement and help students integrate into campus life. With 2,000 students, 40% of whom are international, the program offers a rich cultural exchange across its four campuses, all located in cosmopolitan cities renowned for their energy and vibrant student life.
“From the very first day, I felt warmly welcomed. The international student community is strong, and the French students are open, friendly, and eager to connect with us. The school organizes many activities and events that help international students integrate smoothly. As for student life, Toulouse is an amazing city! It’s lively, full of history, and has a great student atmosphere. There’s always something happening—whether it’s social events, cultural experiences, or simply enjoying the beautiful surroundings with friends.”
The Master of Science (MSc) programs at TBS Education are designed to equip students with all the necessary skills to become experts in their field and position themselves as key assets in the job market.
The school offers 17 MSc programs, all recognized by the French government and awarding a Master’s degree. This diploma is not only recognized in France but also internationally, thanks to the school’s triple accreditation.
In addition to top-tier academic training, TBS Education promotes an immersive learning approach, allowing students to gain real-world professional experience.
This is exemplified by the MSc Aerospace Management, offered at the Toulouse campus, which participated in a 21-week project titled Cross Masters Air Travel Project.
This project focused on the theme: “Towards More Sustainable Tourism”, with a particular emphasis on enhancing Toulouse’s tourism appeal through the involvement of the region’s major airports: Toulouse-Blagnac Airport and Toulouse Francazal Airport.
In collaboration with these airport infrastructures and the University of Toulouse, 37 students from 18 different nationalities worked together to develop innovative and feasible recommendations. Topics covered included:
Students applied various research methodologies (site visits, qualitative and quantitative surveys, interviews, documentary research, etc.) to propose concrete and innovative solutions.
This project allowed them to address a real and relevant issue while developing their skills and professional networks.
In Barcelona, students from the MSc Digital Transformation & Business Innovation conducted a consulting mission for Noè Builders, a subsidiary of the Coco-Mat group, specializing in sustainable wooden house and hotel architecture and construction.
The goal was to perform a market analysis, assessing competition and proposing strategic recommendations to support the company’s market growth.
This two-week mission enabled students to:
They were mentored by Xavier Gasso, a university professor, and Júlia Farré Fernández, a professor and consultant in strategic and business development.
These two projects illustrate TBS Education’s commitment to training its students not only on the academic level but also on the professional level, equipping them with all the tools they need to stand out in the job market.
Congratulations to all teams and students for the successful completion of these ambitious projects!
Each year, TBS Education offers its students a unique experience blending innovation and professional development: the Hackathon. For the 2024 edition, MSc Data Science & Artificial Intelligence and MSc Digital Transformation & Business Innovation program students worked on the theme: “Generative AI for Wellness: Personalizing Pierre Fabre Solutions.” This event perfectly illustrates TBS Education’s commitment to preparing students to address contemporary challenges while combining academic knowledge with practical application.
To professionalize its students, TBS Education collaborates with renowned industry partners through its Hackathon. This year, Microsoft and Pierre Fabre bring their expertise to provide a professionally enriching experience for the students.
Microsoft is the educational partner for the event, introducing its generative AI tool, Copilot Studio, to enable students to create innovative solutions. The company is also providing expert staff to provide technical support.
Pierre Fabre, a key actor in the healthcare sector, is taking on the role of client by proposing a concrete problem, data, and technical support for the event.
‘Pierre Fabre is already a partner of TBS Education and, specifically these days, our company is a partner of this hackathon which, for us, is part of an inter-partner approach as Microsoft is our technical partner and TBS Education is one of our academic partners.’ Clara THIBAULT.
The Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence & Business Analytics will also be taking part. This is a real asset for students, enhancing both their professional and academic experience.
‘The Centre of Excellence in AI and Business Analytics is TBS Education’s reference point for the development of training, multidisciplinary research and collaboration around artificial intelligence, mainly involving teachers, students and numerous industrial and academic partners. This Hackathon specifically highlights the current theme of generative AI, in collaboration with Microsoft and Pierre Fabre, offering students a concrete opportunity to acquire practical skills and come face to face with the realities of the field.’ TCHUENTE Dieudonné, TBS Education Professor-researcher
The main objective is to immerse students in a concrete and stimulating professional environment, while offering them skills that can be deployed on the job market.
Students explore the use of generative AI to produce solutions adapted to contemporary issues, the structuring and exploitation of data to feed artificial intelligence, and the creation of a product or service that meets the needs of an entrepreneurial client. This approach enables them to gain first-hand experience, which is essential for their future careers.
‘We proposed various themes and in the end it was a marketing and consumer- focused theme that was chosen, as it was the most in tune with the different classes present today. We also made data available to the students and provided support during the hackathon through coaching, not technological support, but rather around data.’ Clara THIBAULT
The Hackathon 2024 was held from 9 to 13 December in Toulouse, on the TBS Education campus. This intensive program combines masterclasses, working sessions and final presentations in front of a panel of experts.
Day 1: Inspiration The first day allows students to attend talks on technological trends and market challenges, followed by a presentation of the issues by Pierre Fabre. A masterclass led by Microsoft on the principles of generative AI and the use of Copilot Studio, followed by a fun integration session, is also offered to the students.
Day 2: Ideation Teams dive into the world of prompt engineering through workshops and mentorship provided by Microsoft and Pierre Fabre. They begin crafting their prototypes, exploring innovative solutions aligned with the provided data.
Day 3: Execution On the third day, students test their low-fidelity prototypes, guided by expert mentors and TBS faculty, ensuring a solid foundation for their solutions.
Day 4: Validation During the validation phase, students test their prototypes with potential clients and gather feedback to refine their solutions. They also receive training on pitching techniques to effectively present their projects.
Day 5: Pitch Day The final day culminates in project presentations before a jury comprising representatives from TBS Education, Microsoft, and Pierre Fabre. This step showcases students’ ability to address real-world challenges with innovative solutions.
In addition to the academic aspect of the event, students also benefit from a highly professionalising experience, working with companies such as Microsoft and Pierre Fabre, and participating in the resolution of a real issue.
‘What I got out of this event was the energy of students, their understanding and interpretation of the subjects. They bring a lot of new approaches to the issues and come up with solutions that are off the beaten track. This freshness provides me with an enriching experience, both from a marketing point of view and from the approach, and, finally, from the perspective of data processing and how that data can be used. It also helps, and I say this with a lot of conviction, to strengthen their resumes, because, in a few days, they have a concrete case to think about, and that is valued by employers. It takes them away from theory and brings them back to a practical level, where they are faced with a customer. I think it’s also a good way for them to get their first real-life experience. ‘ Clara THIBAULT
By leveraging real-world tools and challenges, the TBS Education Hackathon stands out as a pivotal step in shaping future professionals. It reflects the school’s educational philosophy: blending academic excellence, technological innovation, and real-world immersion.
This unique experience offers students much more than an academic project—it equips them to tackle the challenges of their future careers with confidence and expertise.
The Hackathon is part of one of TBS Education’s main objectives, which is to professionalise its students and strengthen its links with renowned companies by proposing solutions adapted to their needs.
This unique experience offers students much more than just an academic project: it prepares them to meet future professional challenges with confidence and expertise.
THIS YEAR, TBS EDUCATION CLIMBED TO 9TH PLACE IN THE PARISIEN ETUDIANT RANKING OF POST-PRÉPA BUSINESS SCHOOLS, MOVING UP 2 PLACES.
The list ranks schools delivering a Master’s degree according to some fifteen criteria, including attractiveness, international scope, job placement and salaries, and social and gender diversity.
The analysis carried out by Le Parisien’s journalists places particular emphasis on these 4 criteria, which reflect our school’s strategy: becoming a school of educational well-being, making our students more employable, and maximizing our societal impact on our local areas. To achieve these objectives, TBS Education relies on innovative campuses, expert and recognized faculty, new models of training and employability, and a stronger international presence.
To provide the best educational experience for its students, TBS Education is transforming itself into a business for good, building on more than 15 years of successfully integrating environmental, societal, and social criteria into its school model and its research and training programs. TBS Education’s status as a business for good will give it a new dynamic and speed up its development through a strategy built around four central pillars: innovative campuses and educational well-being, an expert and recognized faculty, new training and employability models, and strong international development.
Fifteen criteria are used to rank the schools delivering Master’s degrees. The editors of Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui en France compiled these rankings after sending a questionnaire out to the schools. Here are the elements used to calculate each score:
Prestige: duration of the Master’s degree (1 to 5 years). Number of national and international accreditations.
Power: group budget. School budget per student. Percentage of foreign students paying tuition fees.
Development: growth in student numbers, group budgets, Grande Ecole Program budgets, and group enrolments between 2021 and 2024. Increase in applicants between 2023 and 2024.
Social: percentage of exemptions calculated and scholarships awarded in relation to the cost of the program.
Infrastructure: Campus size per student and its evolution between 2021 and 2024. Proportion of graduates graduating from the school’s international campuses.
Attractiveness: 1/ For prepas-based schools: Sigem ranking (system for assigning prepas students to top business schools). Volume of prepas integrated and AST 2 (“admissions sur titre en 2e année de grande école”) integrated. Percentage of those present at orals over the number of those eligible. Prepa Concours 2024 candidates. 2/For post-baccalaureate students: number of integrated students and AST 2s (2023 competitive admission exams).
Faculty: proportion of research professors to permanent staff. Proportion of international professors. Supervision ratio. The number of different nationalities among teaching staff.
Pedagogy: percentage of hours taught by research professors. Proportion of double degrees obtained from French institutions.
Professionalization: minimum required internship time. Proportion of apprentices and work-study students. Number of professional intervenors per year per student.
International: proportion of students on study trips. Percentage of accredited agreements out of the total number of agreements. Number of double degrees offered. Proportion of students taking double degrees abroad. Number of countries offered for expatriation.
Research: proportion of articles published by professors.
Salary: placement rate of students before graduation, salary at graduation.
Entrepreneurship: number of companies incubated between 2021 and 2024 or created by graduates in the last 3 years. Percentage of graduates from an entrepreneurial program.
Digital strategy: dynamic digital policy. Number of Facebook fans and followers on X, followers on Instagram, and LinkedIn. Percentage of graduates from a digital field.
Pedagogical innovation: the last criterion was rated according to the opinion of the editors of “Le Parisien Étudiant” on the quality of the schools’ work in the field of pedagogical and development projects.
The sports sector is experiencing a significant boom. The sector has been topping the news with physical activity and sport being named France’s Great National Cause 2024 (GCN2024). This initiative reflects the need to place sport and its benefits at the heart of society as essential elements of individual and collective well-being.
With this in mind, TBS Education’s Bachelor’s degree program has announced the opening of a new 3rd-year sports management program on the Toulouse campus. Designed to respond to the needs of the market, the Sports Management program is designed to introduce students to a range of professions linked to sports management, open up the sector’s possibilities, help them build a network and enable them to work in a sector they are passionate about.
“Sport has the ability to unite, bring people together, nurture their dreams and inspire them… By drawing on its values, its social impact and its power, we will be offering students the chance to immerse themselves in the world of sport by meeting professionals from the sector, learning the fundamentals of management through innovative and inspiring experiences, visits and role-playing,” explains Alexandra Le Mouel, Head of the Sports Management program.
Enhance student skills in the 3rd year and obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Management (Diploma Bac+3 / Grade de licence) with a specialization in sports management.
“We have chosen to launch a new sports management program to respond to the needs of this booming sector. As in all our courses, the program will be based on the acquisition of a solid knowledge base and real-life, immersive experiences. Using a teaching approach directly inspired by the world of sport, the keys to its success and its fundamental values, students will be fully immersed in this environment which prepares them to become enlightened experts, aware of the challenges facing the sector,” explains Patricia Bournet, Director of the Bachelor’s program at TBS Education.
Following the Bachelor’s degree, students can choose to continue their studies at a Grande Ecole, including TBS Education, or at a university in France or abroad.
This program will be available on the Toulouse campus, in French, in September 2024.
To apply, students must be under 28 years of age on September 1, 2024, and hold, or be likely to hold, a B+2 diploma or 120 ECTS in Management Studies at a French university.
Students studying outside France are eligible for the international distance-learning competitive entrance exam.
Application deadline: May 31, 2024
40 places available for Bachelor students and students recruited through parallel admission.
The two-day contest saw students from schools in France, Norway and Ireland rise to the challenge of solving a business problem posed by partner company, TNP consultants. The contest, organized by TBS Education teaching staff and the Centre for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, involved students from TBS Education’s MSc Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and the MSc Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s MSc in Informatics, and students on the University of Galway’s MSc Business Analytics program. Dataiku, a well-known provider of top notch data science platforms was also a partner of the event.
The expert business consulting firm TNP Consultants came up with the following challenge: implement a “credit scoring” tool to enable a company called “Prêt à dépenser” (“Ready to Spend”) to approve or reject a loan to a client.
The students also had to produce a video describing and explaining Artificial Intelligence.
This multi-country competition in English gave students a chance to develop their international network while working on a professional challenge that involved interacting with leading companies in the world of Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
“The Datathon is the perfect example of all the synergies that are happening in the perimeter of analytics and AI because it connects professors who are experts in analytics and AI, our two MSc programs in Analytics and AI, and it also connects with the industry.” Kevin Carillo.
On the first day of the competition, students met on the TBS Education campus for a presentation of the competition and the business problem, then got working on their projects. The aim was to develop the best machine learning algorithm to make the most accurate predictions. Students also had the chance to take part in a Q&A session with Datathon partners and professors. Participants had until midnight to send in their pitch videos.
On the second day, after a debriefing by the teams, participants were able to continue working on their projects, and the 3 best projects then presented a pitch of their work.
The competition ended with an awards ceremony where the students shared social time with the professors and partners.
“What’s really important about Datathon is the development of students’ skills and the exponential learning component.” Jessica Chagnard.
The Datathon includes 3 challenges, and therefore 3 awards:
This year, the Datathon welcomed two well-known partners in the Artificial Intelligence industry:
TNP Digital Factory, experts in digital transformation, providing complete and personalized solutions for businesses.
“What’s interesting for us with TBS Education is that we can have a partnership with a renowned school with such a high academic level.” Riyad Lounissi from TNP Digital Factory.
Dataiku, a French company specializing in Data Sciences, which develops platforms to analyze data and predict movements in the Big Data environment.
The winner in the Best Presentation and Best AI Model categories are the PowerPuff Data group, composed of students from the MSc Data Science & Artificial Intelligence (formerly Big Data, Marketing & Management) of TBS Education .
And the winner of the AI Master Challenge category is TBS Education’s MSc Data Science & Artificial Intelligence.
Congratulations to all the students for their hard work and investment in this competition!
“I think it’s a great experience for all students to participate in an international event” Patrick Makalif.
This intense 2-day experience enabled all participating students to confront the challenges of professional life by working and interacting, in English, with international students, professors and industry professionals.
“I think that this Datathon what actually does is gives you not only the technical capacity but also the business skills required.” Anastasia Griva
By Yuliya SNIHUR
To establish an innovative business model, disruptive start-ups use a strategy resting on two complementary processes: building a discourse which will engage clients and partners in the new ecosystem, also known as framing, and continuous adaptation of their business model in response to the needs of clients. This will be illustrated by the case of Salesforce versus Siebel in the business software industry at the start of the 2000s.
Cases of successful disruptive innovation, where a start-up manages to radically transform the functioning of an industry, remain exceptional. Among the best-known are Amazon with the distribution and sale of books or Netflix which revolutionised the film distribution industry in the United States. They have resulted in the creation of a new business model which shifts the industrial ecosystem’s centre of gravity away from the historic leader and towards the start-up, and ends up creating a new ecosystem around the start-up. Businessmodel innovation is characterised by new sources of value creation, the arrival of new clients and partners and the implementation of a new kind of organisation, which rivals the business model of the historic leader and gradually replaces it.
Up until now, studies of disruptive innovation have been more interested in the reaction of existing businesses, and much less in the manner in which the start-up succeeded in establishing its business model. Hence, the importance of understanding the processes setin motion by the disruptor, which starts off with slender means with which to attract clients, partners, the media and analysts, and ends up taking the lead over an established and much more powerful competitor, and in some cases, making it disappear.This is the process that we call the disruptor strategy, whose aim is to reduce uncertainty in order to engage consumers and partners as players in the creation of the new ecosystem: from the outset, in order to get their attention and support, the start-up reveals itsintentions and ambitions through framing, ie, the construction of an effective discourse and presentation. At the same time, it must adapt its business model and its product to achieve the best possible offer for its clients and partners. The combination of these two actionscreates a virtuous circle and puts the historic leader on the horns of a dilemma: retaliate at the risk of legitimising the new business model, or do nothing and risk being overtaken.
The study of the emergence of Salesforce between 1999 and 2006 against Siebel in the management and client relation (CRM) software sector illustrates the concept of disruptor strategy. Originally, software publishers (Siebel, SAP) sold their clients CRM software andcostly products associated with maintenance and consulting services. Salesforce’s innovation consisted of coming up with a much less expensive business model, based on cloud computing, with SaaS services available by subscription. In the first instance, this product was aimed at consumers who were not part of the Siebel ecosystem.Before Salesforce had even launched, it was already addressing the ecosystem with a discourse emphasising its unique affinity with the “no software” revolution, and then its leadership, via press releases, interviews and dramatic stunts. This framing found an echo with start-ups and small-to-medium-sized businesses lacking the means to invest in a heavy system; with partners interested in the new ecosystem; and with the media and analysts who relayed and amplified Salesforce’s discourse and took up a more critical position in relation to Siebel. At the same time as new consumers were starting to get interested in the product, Salesforce was continually improving it to reach the standards expected by the majority of existing consumers. By combining these two framing processes and adapting the business model, the start-up had started to seduce Siebel’s clients and partners within two or three years.In the face of Salesforce’s offensive, Siebel didn’t react at first. The firm stayed with its old model without taking account of the new needs created by a competitor which it didn’t yet perceive as such. It only launched into the cloud in 2003, three years late. A vicious circle, symmetrical with Salesforce’s virtuous circle, falls into place: poor responses, mounting criticism in the media and from analysts, mass exodus of clients and partners to the new ecosystem. Finally, in 2006, Salesforce became the leading supplier of CRM services, while Siebel was bought by Oracle.
The Salesforce-Siebel case is a prime example of the establishment of a new business model. It highlights the importance of these two complementary processes of framing and adaptation in the disruptor’s strategy. This is, of course, an individual case, but it shares elements with other cases of successful disruption like Amazon and Netflix. For businesses, there are a number of lessons to be learned from these results. For the disruptors, it’s about the importance of pulling on both levers at the same time, given that the temporal window is limited. That means they have to find a way to reveal themselves clearly, but without being too precise, so as not to limit their scope for adaptation. In its framing, Salesforce presented itself as the leader by stating that it was offering a better value product and that its service was cheaper, but without going into the key points of the new business model.
For the leader, it’s hard to know how to react. Siebel had logical reasons for not responding to Salesforce in a market sector in which – at first at least – it had no interest. It’s very tricky to predict whether a start-up will be successfully disruptive or not. The problem is that Salesforce gained a competitive advantage by learning faster than Siebel. Siebel didn’t ask itself the right questions for several years, and the needs of Salesforce’s start-up clients were ahead of the needs of its own clients. When the firm did finally take action, its cloud didn’t function as well as Salesforce’s one, despite an R&D budget and far greater human resources.
To avoid this, existing businesses must therefore develop a strategic vision, an understanding of what is happening in their environment, in order to try to learn more quickly than the start-ups and be attentive to the market of tomorrow. But it’s very difficult for a firm to say that in 10 years’ time its clients will want products that are completely different from those it has on offer today.
This article is a synthesis of the publication “An Ecosystem-Level Process Model of Business Model Disruption: The Disruptor’s Gambit”, published in the Journal of Management Studies. It presents the results of a longitudinal study carried out by Yuliya Snihur (Toulouse Business School), Llewellyn D.W. Thomas (Imperial College London, Universitat Ramon Llull) and Robert A. Burgelman (Stanford School of Graduate Business), from the case study of Salesforce and Siebel, combining a theoretical approach and the analysis of a documentary base of historic data.
By Victor DOS SANTOS PAULINO and Najoua TAHRI
Innovation as the key driver of economic growth is nothing new. However, France, with the rest of Europe, continues to face significant challenges in stimulating innovation in its economy and maintaining its competitive edge.
In a study investigating what discourages French firms from innovating, we find that the biggest barriers to innovation are financial or market-related, and not technological. Financial constraints, lack of competent personnel and a perceived pointlessness of innovating are some of the main culprits behind this lag in innovation. Surprisingly, very few firms cited technological barriers, and similar results have been observed in other parts of the world.
The right skill-mix
Taking a closer look, we observe that many of the obstacles can be traced back to a shortage of managers with the relevant skill set. Various innovation studies point out that innovation success requires the effective combination of different expertise, both technical and commercial. However, managers with both attributes are rare, especially in France. And the absence of versatile managers can result in conflicting viewpoints between technical managers who tend to be preoccupied with technological performances and commercial managers who tend to be focused on market concerns. This in turn can lead to a communication breakdown and cooperation failure, impeding the innovation process.
Add to this, the prevalent culture of “technology push” innovation in France, where by innovation processes are spearheaded by R&D in new technologies but are plagued by a poor understanding of the market. This not only reinforces market barriers to innovation but also leads to financial constraints. Substantial resources end up being pumped into and prolonging the R&D phase, blurring the distinction between inventing something, innovation and achieving innovation success. The development of the Concorde is a good illustration of this. To date there are ongoing debates on whether the supersonic airliner was an innovation success or not. For some, the technological breakthroughs overshadow the fact that only 14 units were sold to two clients. In short, firms are discouraged from innovating because innovation, from their perspective, necessitates considerable resources to cover the excessive costs of invention.
Impact of government support
In Europe and notably in France, public authorities are wrapped up with technological progress leaving little room for commercial expertise in the innovation process. Inventions and discontinuous technologies are favored, often out of sync with market dynamics, and very costly. Too often public funding programs, for instance in the aerospace sector, push firms to undertake projects that are not always economically viable. Thus, firms tend to orientate their strategies on technological advances, to the detriment of market objectives, essential for anticipating returns on investment.
Contextual factors
Breaking down the obstacles by industry, the aerospace industry faces the highest obstacles, followed by the manufacturing and service industries. This is expected as aerospace companies are more likely to be innovative, face high productions costs and heavily rely on public investment. In contrast, firms in the service industry experience the fewest obstacles. The development of new-to-world products is rare in the service industry, where the intangibility of products allows for easy imitation by rival firms and thus raises a serious problem in convincing investors to fund new ventures. Service orientated firms therefore tend to adopt a market pull strategy with focus on continuous innovations, marginally enhancing or upgrading the service offering, and at a much lower cost. It is therefore not surprising that firms in this sector face the lowest financial barriers to innovation.
Overcoming barriers to innovation
As a starting point, firms should accommodate market research in their innovation processes. This is easier said than done as technical managers sometimes first need to move away from the idea that if you don’t know how to make a product, you won’t know how to sell it. Technical managers need to recognize the importance of bringing in the market perspective on board the innovation process. To combat the shortage of managers with both technical and business skills, firms could offer on-the-job training to develop deficient competencies (e.g. granting MBA opportunities to technical managers). Moreover, to tackle the root of the problem, higher learning institutions offering scientific degrees should integrate a strong element of social sciences in their programs. This would not only ensure a commercial dimension in the innovation process but may also go a long way to solving communication issues between technical and commercial teams, and add legitimacy to marketing insights.
However, this is not a substitute for involving commercial managers directly in the innovation process. Ideally, firms should go a step further and create a business intelligence unit to provide information on the market, to work side by side and complement the work of the technological team. The weight accorded to commercial competencies in the innovation process will vary according to the characteristics of the activity sector.
A fundamental change will also have to come from the public authorities who need to redirect their funding to support successful innovations rather than novel technologies, and allow firms to focus on continuous innovation – the natural course for most. By prioritizing downstream innovation processes, such as innovation commercialization, firms will face lower market barriers and innovation costs. To this end, public authorities need to make more room for firms in defining the strategic orientation of public support policies.Innovation is a powerful means by which to ensure long-term survival. Without innovation, it is extremely difficult to adapt to a changing environment. Although new product failure is high, innovation without any failure is impossible. In a nutshell, successful innovation requires not only a change in the mindset and innovation culture of firms but also shifts in the public institutional framework to be more in favor of continuous innovation. Firms, government agencies, higher education institutions all have a role to play in overcoming barriers to innovation and creating an enabling environment for innovation.
This article is based on the study entitled, “Les obstacles à l’innovation en France : analyse et recommandations ”, co-authored by Victor Dos Santos Paulino and Najoua Tahri, published in Management & Avenir, 2014/3, no. 69, p. 70 – 88, available here
The study, conducted in 2014, is based on the results from the 4th Community Innovation Survey (CIS 4) carried out in France between 2002 and 2004 and published by Eurostat. 175,533 firms in France participated in the survey, indicating if they have experienced any of 11 obstacles to innovation. For the purposes of our study, we then divided the obstacles into four categories: knowledge, market, financial and external obstacles, and analyzed the obstacles by nature of the firm and by sector (manufacturing, services and aerospace, the latter being a key industry in France).
Par Yuliya Snihur
In the construction of a corporate identity for their business, creators of innovative start-ups have to simultaneously highlight their distinctiveness and also show that they belong to a pre-existing category of similar businesses. The objective is to reach “optimal distinction” which means finding a balance between an identity which is distinct from other businesses, and a “group” identity where they can show they belong to well-established business category. This balance is important if starts-ups are to grow their reputation and legitimacy.
To be unique but not too unique, that is the dilemma. A business’s first few years of existence are critical for the construction of its identity. It’s a period when creators make strategic choices which they must implement rapidly so that the business project survives and develops, but whose consequences are difficult to modify over the long term. The aim is to highlight the distinctiveness of the business while reassuring potential customers and partners about its normality. This balance is what’s known as “optimum distinction”. To succeed, a midway point has to be found between being unique, which contributes to the reputation of the firm, and the need to be like the others, to belong to a pre-existing and recognised group or category, which delivers legitimacy.
The challenge of building a corporate identity is something all new businesses have to face, but it’s even more intense for innovating companies with new business models, ie, a way of running their business which breaks away from existing practices in their sector. By definition, start-ups have no history or track record and are unknown to the general public, who have no frame of reference or benchmarks to rely on when it comes to trust.
What this study seeks to identify is the means by which innovating start-up companies build their reputation and legitimacy in the eyes of the public. To answer this question, we have analysed the way in which four young businesses built their identity. All four had introduced new business models, but each belonged to a different market sector: health, restaurants, digital services and the hotel sector. The results reveal four specific actions that were present in every case: these are storytelling, the use of analogy, seeking accreditation or reviews, and the establishment of alliances or partnerships. On the basis of these results, we have come up with a theoretical model which shows the link between each action taken and its consequences for the business’s corporate identity as perceived by the public, each action tending to influence both the reputation and the legitimacy of the firm.
The first two actions are the sole responsibility of the creator and are linked to the way the business proclaims or declares itself from the start. Storytelling describes the genesis of the enterprise and gives it meaning. If it highlights individual experience or the personality of the creator, it will have an influence the reputation of the firm; if it highlights a social issue, like sustainable development, it will be more likely to establish its legitimacy. Analogies, on the other hand, allow the firm to explain its contribution by comparing it to other players in other sectors, close to or distant from the firm’s own activity. When the players are from the same sector, we speak of a local analogy whose aim is to build up the firm’s legitimacy. If they are from different sectors, this more distant analogy will result in a strengthening of its reputation.
The two other types of action involve a broader cross-section of collaborators. These actions need to be taken later on because they require more time to put in place and call for a more objective assessment of the firm’s competency compared with other businesses or organisations. A third-party evaluation can take multiple forms, from rankings and prizes to processes of certification or accreditation. In the first instance, the evaluation should grow its reputation, in the second, it will impact on its legitimacy. And finally, establishing partnerships, with the regular meetings that entails, leads to stronger relationships with third parties. This leads also to image enhancement through association, which fosters the firm’s reputation or justifies its membership of a group or a category and thus confers legitimacy.
The size of our sample and the short period over which the study was undertaken do not allow us to draw any general conclusions about the effects of these four actions. Nonetheless, the replication of similar results in a sample of four businesses belonging to four different sectors does make it possible to offer hypotheses that make a fresh contribution to the theory of business identity, especially in the particular instance of businesses operating an innovative business model in their sector. These hypotheses could be tested in future studies on a larger sample and at a more advanced stage in the development of the business. On a practical note, new businesses engaged in innovation could use them to find pointers on the timing and the actions to implement to construct their firm’s corporate identity.
The approach chosen for this qualitative study draws on the field of multiple case-by-case studies. Yuliya Shilhur selected the four most innovative businesses in terms of their business models in four different sectors, from a representative line-up of 165 firms chosen at the start. The results were obtained by studying 620 pages of documentary sources (both internal and external) supplied by the firms and 29 interviews with inside sources (founders, employees) and external ones (investors, clients). The study was published in February 2016 in the review, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, under the title “Developing optimal distinctiveness: organizational identity processes in new ventures engaged in business model innovation.”