Who is Laval Innov
Laval Innov is Laval's Espace régional d'accélération et de croissance (ERAC). It is a facilitating organization that creates an environment conducive to business innovation and the emergence of structuring projects for the region. Laval Innov aims to become an innovation broker, supporting the growth of companies through a range of specialized services.
.Laval Innov's mission is to catalyze and support the development of innovation in the Laval ecosystem, particularly in the flagship sectors of the Laval economy, while also taking care of so-called traditional and emerging sectors.
His vision is to propel Laval as one of Quebec's leaders in sustainable innovation.
Objectifs-de-veille-stratégique
Laval Innov didn't hesitate to collaborate with Phar to set up a strategic watch. A strategic watch enabling him to increase his ability to detect and interpret strategic information from public bodies and cutting-edge sectors. This will enable the company to be much more proactive with its mandate as a promoter of structuring projects, while aiming to exercise its role as a catalyst for growth for companies in the Laval region. The main objectives of Laval Innov are:
- To gain a better understanding of the environment, political decisions and political will;
- Anticipate calls for proposals for different projects;
- Have a better understanding of the IoT and AI sectors.
Laval Innov would like to use the information from business intelligence to prioritize its actions, connect to the right resources and propose projects with the aim of :
- Ensure its relevance to confirm its added value vis-à-vis granting organizations;
- Affirm its position as a key player on the territory in the realization of regional structuring projects;
- Concretize its contribution to innovation in the eyes of companies through the provision of high value-added support.
Accompaniment process employed as part of our mandate with Laval Innov
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We started the project by co-creating a customized watch plan built around specific needs with the Laval Innov team.
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We began the work of identifying and optimizing information sources.
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The first personalized watch newsletter was delivered a month later. After each newsletter mailing, a retrospective meeting is held.
- This meeting allows the Phar team to validate the relevance of the information and see if Laval Innov's strategic objectives have changed. In this way, we ensure that we always remain relevant and in line with Laval Innov's evolving needs.
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After the first quarter, we identified a buoyant theme that was explored in synthesis meetings and decision-making with the Laval Innov team to establish actions to be carried out thanks to the information gathered through strategic intelligence.
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An evolving action plan linked to the key theme and a quarterly follow-up were jointly drawn up. This enables Laval Innov to activate the information from the strategic intelligence by contextualizing and advancing it in order to transform the information gathered into a concrete project.
Some weak signals spotted that helped identify a promising project as part of strategic intelligence
Weak signals are indicators of an emerging change, trend or risk that could become significant for the future. They enable us to hypothesize, broaden our thinking and challenge assumptions.
During the first strategic intelligence bulletin, Phar identified several weak signals associating IoT and the cybersecurity issue. Indeed, without robust cybersecurity measures, every IoT device becomes a potential backdoor to sensitive information.
- If a device is not secured within a network, a hacker may be able to access and disrupt the database, leading to production irregularities and financial damage. Bad actors quickly realize that IoT devices have no authentication system, certificates or other security protocols. They therefore represent an easy backdoor.
With the advent of Manufacturing 4.0, factories are becoming increasingly connected. All the devices integrated into this connection create just as many risks of cybersecurity incidents, representing a huge challenge for all companies.
- Staff involved in the deployment of manufacturing companies typically specialize in IT or IT security, while Industry 4.0 requires expertise in several areas, such as global network security and embedded systems.
We also quickly realized that the weakest link in the chain was the SME.
" Today, the real issue in cybersecurity is the fate reserved for SMEs, which are the weak link in the chain. Through subcontracting, these SMEs can make even large corporations vulnerable if their information systems are attacked. " - Frédéric Cuppens
In addition, cybersecurity concerns are a potential brake on investment.
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According to Centripetal, 91% of manufacturers are investing in digital technology
- 35% said they were prevented from fully investing due to cybersecurity concerns.
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Here's a relevant extract from the study on cybersecurity and the opportunities offered by data access in Quebec:
" There should be no technological innovation without taking cybersecurity into account. Cybersecurity is not considered at the outset of technological innovation. Cybersecurity comes too late in the equation, and companies don't want to invest in cybersecurity. There are more and more connected objects, and we need to find ways of training people in cybersecurity for new technologies (IoT, Infonuagic, etc.). " - Expert Cybereco
Alongside this information, we were able to identify more and more initiatives on the part of government bodies in response to numerous cyber attacks on public institutions. Initiatives included: the Loi 25 at the provincial level, the creation of a ministry of cybersecurity in Quebec, as well as the proposed Bill C-26 at the federal level. In addition, several Innovation Zone projects related to this issue have been submitted.
All these weak signals enabled Laval Innov to see a real opportunity for impact by supporting SMEs in raising awareness and consolidating their cybersecurity strategy.
La distinction Phar
Laval Innov has been a media watchdog for several years, offering a monthly newsletter to its registered audience to keep them abreast of innovation news. The Phar team used the following iceberg metaphor to explain the difference between Laval Innov's media watch and the augmented strategic intelligence offered by Phar.
For François Bilodeau, General Manager of Laval Innov, media monitoring is beneficial because it provides certain information from traditional media to innovation enthusiasts in the Laval area. On the other hand, Laval Innov has no way of knowing what its audience is doing with the information obtained.
Integrating strategic intelligence, meanwhile, informs and equips Laval Innov in its decision-making aimed at initiating projects, activities or services with impact for the region.
According to François, the winning recipe for Phar's offer and support can be summed up in three points:
- The Phar team is able to fetch information that is not readily available;
- It helps us to "digest-contextualize" information to achieve a common understanding within my team .
- And, she helps us structure the information obtained so that we can transform it into concrete projects.
" In addition, the Phar team is always there to support us in achieving our objectives arising from strategic intelligence. For Laval Innov, it was the identification of an issue and the development of a component of the service offering that could respond to it in order to support the Laval entrepreneurial ecosystem. "
For François, it's clear that without Phar's support his team probably wouldn't have been able to turn the information obtained into a service offering. " Phar's team always had the right questions and got us thinking about how we could have a concrete impact for our customers ".
François remembers a moment when we said to him, "we've been monitoring cybersecurity for 3 months, now what could Laval Innov do with this information?" A simple question that guided the team to think outside the box.
Results obtained
For Laval Innov, Phar's augmented business intelligence service enabled:
- Identify a buoyant theme that could be included in its service offering, and thus affirm its role in supporting innovation;
- Deepen its knowledge of cybersecurity and its ecosystem;
- Develop in-house expertise related to the theme.
