Stepping sideways the crab strategy
[Music]
[Applause]
as a child
sunday was most memorable for the family
lunches
during those days i remember one
sentence that sounded
very wise and very ancient to my child’s
here
whenever something of importance
occurred to me
or occurred to everyone during those
lunches someone will say
time will tell i don’t know if it speaks
to you
he didn’t speak to me at the time sunday
lunches were
long enough as it was
at the age of 18 i entered the
scientific prep school
traditionally considered in france as
one of the hardest
and the most challenging education pass
for young children
a journey i had not chosen but in which
i was somewhat
enrolled since my birth
not knowing who i was not knowing where
i was going
i followed the past it was given to me
my vision of the future was extremely
limited
and i thought if i work hard
if i give it all then my past is set
and success would be somewhat assured
that was naive extremely naive
in the game of prep school and abstract
thinking
we are not all equal and some are much
more gifted than others
regardless of the amount of work i was
putting in
i was struggling while some of my
classmates seems to be flying through
the program
i thought i was waiting through mug
and this is during this very difficult
prep school moment that i learned
something essential in life
we are all in a card game
and we all have different cards and each
card has its own purpose
and sometimes the card that we hold in
hands are not the best one
but they may prove to be very useful in
the future so my advice to you is
hold tight to your cards and always keep
playing
school was difficult i was struggling i
was suffering but nevertheless
i went through the program
after prep school i joined ostp at
french engineering school specialized in
construction and civil works
after two years i decided it was time to
gain international exposure
and i tried my luck in the us i sent
spontaneously
four 4-5 application to 4-5 american
university
and maybe by luck i got accepted at mit
in boston
more collaborative more hands-on more
international
the american curriculum was a fantastic
fit
and i built great souvenir from this
period in this
university we are often told
we have to play to our strengths
but first we need to identify them
at that age at your age
it’s not that easy i was only starting
to begin to understand that
straight line were not for me especially
if they were drawn by others and that is
why i started to craft what i now call
the crop strategy
when moving in straight line becomes
difficult
take a step back analyze all options
and try to see if by making a move to
the left or making a move to the right
you cannot keep moving on your own
journey
after mit after my graduation
i decided to join an investment bank
why because it was a prestigious choice
because it was the best option i had at
the time
karlovic my chess professors often tells
me
when nothing of importance happens on
the chessboard
you still have to play just choose your
best
option and play without steering the
game
the game will naturally evolve
opportunities will arise
and then you’ll have the chance to
accelerate
and indeed the game did evolve after
three years in banking
an mba at insead and two years in
management consulting
i decided to leave everything
and to join my father who had taken over
a company
a manufacturing company in mayan for the
parisian elite
i was living everything i was living a
clear career path a structured future
to go and get lost in the countryside
for me
i was making my first choice and i
didn’t know it at the time
but i was about to enter manufacturing
and i would love it
but first let’s dig a bit more into the
choice
why did i join this manufacturing
company
maybe to go and to help my family and
especially my father
but most probably to make my first
professional
choices as a child
during those family lunches i was
surrounded by people who had crafted
their own destiny with their own hands
and maybe those people tried to
influence me also at the time
now was the time to make my own choice
and to also craft my own destiny
so i did make no mistake
joining a family company is an adventure
without a safety net and often without
backtracking
from the discussion with my father i
understood very early on
that manufacturing like many other
activities
bear fruit over the long run for those
who are pugnacious enough to earn it
day after day for those who will play
their cards
with patience with awareness
and with vision this is why when i
joined the ois the family company i
played my card over the long run
i immediately tried to leverage my
international experience
to go and to travel abroad i visited
more than 100 countries
to convince clients to work with us but
also to build a vision
in a market whose technological
acceleration
is still amazing today from a few dozen
employees we grew the company to 850
people today
from 2000 machine manufacturer per year
we grew the company to 2000 machine
manufacturer
per day what an incredible collective
adventure
but it didn’t come without any
challenges
let me give you two of them the first
challenge came from the east
a bit like in my prep school when i was
surrounded by people
whose abstraction level exceeded mine
i found myself on the side of my father
when china entered the international
market
and changed the manufacturing paradigm
the way we used to know it
faced with a tsunami of highly
competitive product
sometimes 50 percent of our price we had
no choice
but to apply the crop strategy once
again but this time not only for us
but for the employee of the group and
for my family
especially and especially my sisters who
put their trust into me
the second challenge came from the
technology products
and market were mature since the second
world war
started to mutate and even disappear
we had no other choice but to very
carefully listen to our clients
changing needs and to adjust our product
and offering
accordingly i don’t know if you remember
i told you i was not gifted for straight
line
in this changing party parting this
permanent
changing parting this peculiarity helped
me
and the crop strategy enabled the
company
not only to survive but to move forward
in the future
let me say a world
on strategy in the context of
manufacturing machines in europe
if the size of our domestic market in
france was large enough
when i started to work
in the days of mechanical and electrical
engineering
this is no longer the case at a moment
where you will be starting to work
in the days of electronics and software
in the case of our company each of our
new product requires more r d
investments
and therefore a larger clientele to be
able to amortize those
investments it’s not that difficult
the larger domestic market is the more
likely a company will be to invest in
technology
whether we we like it or not in europe
if we want to continue to build
european or international manufacturing
champion
we have no other choice but to build
this dream
on the size of europe i have to build
europe you have to build europe we
have to build europe it’s our future
finally as i stand in front of you
20 years after my engineering school
i’m still in the middle of my card game
and i hope to continue to learn from my
cards
every day be ambitious for yourself and
for your community
be curious be open-minded be generous to
others
and remember that moving forward
constructing your future moving from
yourself to others and from others to
the world
will not be an easy and straight line
and when you’ll feel like you have a
heated dead end
or if you don’t know what your next
carrier move
should be remember the crop strategy
take a step back analyze all of your
options
and try to see if by making a move to
the left
or making a move to the right you cannot
accelerate
on your own journey thank you very much
[Music]
you