Intrapreneurship programme: Teréga opens up new avenues for innovation

Aurelia Taupin, Research and Innovation Manager, project leader - As part of the IMPACTS 2025 corporate strategy, now GAïA 2035, Teréga’s Executive Committee has worked to create a playing field that encourages initiatives from all employees. This is how the intrapreneurship programme came about. An integral part of the TENEXI approach (from the French for “Let’s all explore innovation together”), it provides a response to two challenges: developing new businesses for Teréga, particularly in the fields of gas supplies, decarbonisation and energy frugality, and encouraging the upskilling of workers in agile project management, taking the initiative, and business and innovation tools.

Magali Clerc, Life and Working Conditions Advisor, project leader - The Intrapreneurship programme is open to all Teréga employees. The sole condition is that they should be on a permanent contract and work on their idea as a team of two to four people. No less than fifteen projects were put forward. That is a significant ratio compared with our workforce, and four were chosen to benefit from the full intrapreneurship programme. It includes dedicated time and a dedicated budget, HR support and a training and coaching programme led by in-house experts and external partners, specialists in the world of start-ups, such as Le Village by CA.

In less than a year, the different stages of the programme enabled us to challenge and enrich the initial ideas, analyse the legal, strategic and financial aspects of the projects, target future customers and partners, and put forward a final offer with a view to turning it into a commercial venture.

Giacomo Matarazzo, Strategy & Innovation Manager and project sponsor -  At this time of rapid acceleration in technological development, it’s crucial for Teréga to find new ways of taking advantage of these changes, grasping the best opportunities and selecting the most promising directions. Offering our employees a chance to reveal and realise their ideas is a way of broadening our study of the subject, and of identifying new, as yet unexplored, avenues for our business. By revealing talents from outside the usual confines, the intrapreneurship programme has met those objectives. It has brought out proposals that make sense for the Group and which are in line with its vision, its mission, and its corporate strategy. It has also turned the focus on their suitability, assessing how easy they would be to implement considering the resources, skills and investments needed, and asking the intrapreneurs to demonstrate the existence both of a market and of development potential. Importantly, this last point includes gauging the level of interest among future customers, but also the willingness of external partners to support us in rolling out these offers. This openness to external partnerships is an important aspect, which will play a bigger part in future rounds.

The programme as seen from the inside, by two participants: Emeline Quarin, Project Leader, and Carlos Vilchez, Design Engineer.

Emeline Quarin - When I heard of the intrapreneurship programme, my idea was already set for take-off. Having had difficulty finding training courses on the issues involved in the energy transition, and having ended up organising their own training, Teréga’s teams had become quite knowledgeable and could pass on their knowledge. So my project involved creating a training centre within Teréga, aimed at our customers and all actors in the energy transition. And now it’s just about to open its doors.

Carlos Vilchez - I too already had a subject in mind, born out of repeated discussions with colleagues on the topics of carbon footprint reduction and energy optimisation. Intrapreneurship has provided an opportunity to develop this solution, drawing on the security and structure you get from a group. Our project is about storing energy, exploiting our assets to support the development of renewable sources.

Emeline Quarin -  This challenge has really opened our eyes to the difficulties that an entrepreneur faces when getting started. But we were able to give it a go without running the same risks. Intrapreneurship offers the best of both worlds in this respect, and I hope all Teréga’s employees will want to take part next season!

Carlos Vilchez - Personally, I'd even like to be able to start over again! This professional experience has been very instructive. We were able to access the methods and tools used by start-ups. Most of all, I will look back on it as a great human endeavour, as part of a team driven to turn ideas into reality.