Open innovation lies at the centre of Societe Generale's digital strategy: Establishing relationships with the global digital ecosystem to serve our core businesses

In its transformation process, Societe Generale is continuing to develop its open innovation strategy, ramping up its relationships with startups and FinTechs and exchanging and cooperating with them more and more. With a double objective for the Group: sharing its expertise (in regulations, investments, distribution, etc.) with outside players and drawing on their know-how in terms of user experience, new technologies and working methods. By cooperating more with these players, Societe Generale is able to identify which startups will create value for its activities from among the thousands of innovative startups on the market

Françoise Mercadal-Delasalles, Group Head of Corporate Resources and Innovation, said, “In a world of rapid technological and interpersonal change, Societe Generale is drawing on the strength and innovation capacity of a multitude of internal and external players to reinvent the banking industry. Open innovation gives us an opportunity to open up to new worlds and experiences, to think out of the box and to learn from this digital ecosystem in order to capitalise on its agility and technological expertise. The Group intends to pursue and step up its cooperation with startups and FinTechs.”
 
To accelerate its digital transformation, Societe Generale wanted to start by giving its employees the means to innovate. Illustrating this strategy, the Digital for All programme, the implementation of new working methods such as working from home and digital training sessions, and more recently the move of 5,000 employees to Les Dunes, the Group's new office complex in Val de Fontenay, a fully-connected technological hub fostering collaborative working and co-creation.

Societe Generale’s open innovation approach is based on the interaction of creative strengths from within and outside the Group.
This approach has two main priorities: to enhance relationships with players in the digital ecosystem in order to connect them with business lines needs and to promote internal innovation capacity with new workspaces and alternative ways of working.

Enhancing relationships with startups and Fintechs in order to connect them with business lines needs
The first priority of the Group’s open innovation strategy is to increase contacts and investments with the digital ecosystem to better qualify the startups and FinTechs that could meet the business lines needs.