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The Future of Privacy Concerning the Financial Services: From Physical Vaults and Bank Secrecy to Data Leverage and Digital Literacy?

article extracted from the prospective book "the futures of privacy" from "Digital Future" think-tank from the Telecom Fondation, article written by myself. full book: http://www.fondation-telecom.org/media/fondation/Documents/privacy-bd-complet.pdf

The Future of Privacy Concerning the Financial Services: From Physical Vaults and Bank Secrecy to Data Leverage and Digital Literacy?

Matthieu Soulé

Banking and insurance activities: a brief introduction

The development of financial services has always been directly correlated with the development of the needs of societies and economies to build and grow cities, businesses and trade (1). On the one hand, a bank’s role is to connect the money from those with surplus capital to those with capital deficits, and consequently allocate the financial resources in an optimal way. On the other hand, insurance is a mechanism to transfer the risk of a loss from one entity to another in exchange for payment.

The state of the financial system as a network of economic agents (both individuals and companies) is a sign of the vitality of an economy and a mirror of the trust inherited by the values supported by the society. The financial services sector is one of the key actors of the global economy as it helps to raise the virtuous circle of trust. As a third party they allow trade and transactions to take place between people in different locations who do not necessarily know each other.

“Keep the money safe”

From an individual perspective, the primary role of a bank is to “keep the money safe,” either in a physical vault, or more recently in both physical and electronic formats. On the other side, also from an individual standpoint, insurance is there to “protect people and goods against life hazards.”

Insurance and banking activities are thus based upon a high level of trust and long term relationships because of the very specific nature of these businesses related to the protection, wealth and financial life of their clients. For centuries the interactions with the bank have been developed upon the direct relationship between the clients and their relationship manager, or advisor, even if today this is extended by the digital tools at clients’ disposal.

Last but not least, something quite specific to banking is “bank secrecy”: One of the conditions of the relationship between a bank and its customer is that information about clients and their affairs are treated as strictly confidential and are managed under professional secrecy acts. Like doctors or lawyers, the bank cannot share information about individuals and their financial information, whether they are clients or not. Depending on the geography, there are some exceptions to this rule such as tax evasion, funding terrorism and money-laundering activities (take as an example Tracfin in France, which is the governing body for the Ministry of Economy and Finance to track money laundering and terrorism activities) (2).

Regarding personal data and other forms of data managed by banks and insurance companies, within each geography both are compliant with the national laws in place and are supervised by both the data protection authority, where present, and the financial sector regulator. In France, for example, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) (3) is the data protection authority, and the Banque de France with its body the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) supervises both banks and insurance companies (4).

BNP Paribas: Digital as an opportunity to redefine and enhance the customer relationship

After introducing some key elements for the financial services activities, I would like to provide some information about BNP Paribas and explain why the evolution of privacy is essential for us in a more and more digitally-influenced environment for the financial services sector.

BNP Paribas is one of the leading financial services companies in Europe with 25 million retail banking customers in 40 countries and 283,000 corporate customers. The retail banking activities represented 61% of BNP Paribas’ revenues in 2013, and if you add the other retail activities from insurance to consumer credit and car leasing, BNP Paribas manages a lot of complex data for both its clients and its own purposes, from ratio calculation to risk assessment to service delivering.

The retail banking business (banking to individuals and companies) is all about personal relationships with the clients, helping them attain good financial health and supporting them to successfully achieve their goals. Today in a bank like BNP Paribas, retail banking represents a headcount of 142,000, largely client-facing with more than 150 business centres across Europe and 7,300 branches worldwide for 24.4B euros in revenue in 2012. The business of a bank is to financially help their clients with their life projects, such as setting-up their businesses, buying their house, their first car or saving money for their children’s education and future.

The bank is progressively shifting within this new digital environment, following its clients: there is a multiplication of the interactions between the banks and the customer, and consequently a multiplication of data collected from customers that can be used to better serve them. For example, the total number of contacts with clients in the developed countries has been multiplied by two for retail banking between 2004 and 2012. It started from a base of 95% of contacts made by traditional channels (branches, ATMs and call centres) in 2004 to 46% in 2012, which means that digital channels (mobile and online), with 54% of the total of interactions, are now the first channels of interaction between the banks and their customers (5), and this also intensifies the relationships with their clients. As the total number of interactions doubled almost entirely because of these new channels, when people come to branches or have a call with their relationship manager, they expect a higher quality of advice and therefore, it improves the quality of the relationship with their advisor.

Parallel to this, from the usage of the electronic card to the categorization of expenses and the use of digital applications that have been developed in the last few years, there is an explosion of data creation within retail banking activities derived from client usage which could be leveraged in a win-win configuration. The same will happen soon for insurance activities on a larger scale with the emergence of new measurements from sensors installed in cars, at home, to mobile health trackers which will allow the launch of new services and offers to individuals and corporations, thanks to the intensive usage of data collection and analyses.

From data collection to data leverage: First experimenting new value-added services for individuals, secondly monetizing the service

Banks today could be seen as giant technological actors with their data centres which manage billions of transactions a day, and millions of “customer events,” from cash-withdrawals to account statement viewing on a mobile app, and the massive information networks formed by these economic actors. I like to say that at the macro-level, a large bank such as BNP Paribas is the equivalent of an almost real-time INSEE (the French national statistic and economic studies agency): Its clients represent a very good sample of economic agents in France and in Europe. Their economic decisions are reflected and captured by their transactions, such as credit, investment and deposit.

At the micro-level, when an individual uses the bank to host his main account, the bank is able to identify the sources of income, large categories of expenditure and the economic links between other individuals and businesses. The issue for a bank is not to use this data in an inappropriate manner from the client’s, and also the regulator’s, points of view.

The new possibilities of leveraging this data for new services and products are phenomenal: From individual to corporate services, the usage and combination of data are undoubtedly a great source of the future innovations that will take place in the financial services sector.

As a concrete example of the use of financial services data for non-financial activities, Bundle.com is a service which has been co-developed in the USA by Citibank, Microsoft and MorningStar (provider of financial information) and was launched in 2010 with the ambition to create a “personal finance social-media site that will change the way people discuss saving and spending money (6)." One of the actual live beta tests is marketed as “bundle – unbiased, data-driven ratings” using data from literally billions of anonymised Citibank customer card transactions to identify a certain number of interesting insights in cities. An example of this is the catering industry in New York (LaFourchette.com meets transaction data) (7) collecting observations such as: real average bill paid by people, which days people go to the restaurant, neighbourhood of origin of the people coming to the restaurant, in which other restaurants these clients regularly eat… The service is still in its beta phase but this illustrates how data from card transactions could be leveraged to collect information and identify patterns about the restaurant businesses, and even advise new set-ups based upon this market data.

Another example was a startup called BillShrink.com (8) which was created in 2007 with the aim of “providing a free, online service to help consumers make better purchase decisions for complex product categories.” As an individual, you were providing key information about the type of consumption habits you had, for example from your phone bill (the price you paid, number of minuts, sms…), and Billshrink.com would propose counter-offers based upon your own declarations. The service pivoted to become Truaxis and was finally acquired by MasterCard in 2012 (9). Mint.com would go even further: from an aggregation service of your different banking accounts and by obtaining details of your transactions through the use of your login and passwords to access your different accounts, they announced that they would make you counter-offers directly based upon your transaction data. This did not happen as Mint.com was acquired by Intuit in 2009 before really having the opportunity to test the idea (10).

Data collection and analysis in exchange for personalization and customised experience: Is the trade-off for data privacy really that easy?

The biggest fear for all these new digital services exploiting personal data is to go too far, as in the case of Target in the USA in 2012 with their loyalty programme, when a father heard about the potential pregnancy of his daughter before she told him, as she used his loyalty card to make a purchase and he consequently received offers for babycare products from Target (11).

In another sector, entertainment, Disney implemented a giant $1B project called “My Magic Band” which has been in pilot for two years in Florida: You receive a band (bracelet) before going to the Theme Park, which is essentially a digital wallet which stores your hotel room key, your entrance ticket and your money. This service allows you to “enjoy the magic world of Disney with this frictionless process.”

In the words of the Disney CEO and CFO in different conferences in 2013:

“Now there is a lot more that comes with it, customization and personalization. It enables us to know who you are and essentially enables not only you to tailor the experience that works best for you, but also us to help you do that; that is a big deal. The wristband also is your room key, it is your ticket, it is your entrance to these attractions that you reserved. […] However, a secondary driver of revenue will be the services that we can now offer on a personalised basis because we know who you are, where you are and, if you tell us, why you are coming to Walt Disney World for this vacation, whether you are a first-time visitor, a 50th-time visitor, it is your child’s fifth birthday, it is a graduation, it is an anniversary. The more you share with us as a guest the more we are able to tailor services and, we think, get a lift in selling those services. So that is the fundamental economics (12).”

In our digital era, the equation for privacy is above all a question of what kind of positive aspects can be seen from the collection and analysis of personal data in the future.

For me, as long as data derived from human behaviors is concerned, there are unlimited possibilities to restitute this data to consumers and create a new level of awareness for them, helping them better manage their lives. It is true for banking, health, energy consumption and education. The more tools you can give out to empower people and better inform them about what they care about, the more comfortable they will be with their data being used.

They are also susceptible of requesting more of such services even if they have to share more information and personal data in the process.

Of course there is the question of technical feasibility in terms of confidentiality, analysis and data-rendering. The personal authentication and data reliability are pre-requisites for the correct use of personal data in a manner that benefits both the individual and the business which is providing the service. For example, in the banking industry, there is a strict regulation regarding the account opening process (Know Your Customer procedures, KYC) and suspicious transactions: You need to ensure that reliable data, or a set of proofs, are collected to guarantee the correct level of customer service.

There is also a real question about which kind of third parties can be trusted today in the context of the Snowden revelations, both about governments and technology giants. Some forces would probably push in favor of more independent data vaults. Also likely to emerge are new forms of protection equivalent to the so-called “electronic vault” to avoid data loss, and also to avoid this data being seen by, or compromised by, corporations or governments.

The concept of Vendor Relationship Management (VRM, as opposed to CRM, Customer Relationship Management), presented in the book The Intention Economy – When Customers Take Charge written by Doc Searls (13), is probably one of the most advanced visions on the subject, and is becoming more and more relevant in a context where new independent third parties will have to be created. The idea is to develop tools that help people take better decisions regarding their service providers and manage their relationship. The tools could be used to make some Request For Proposal (RFP) for services and invert the bargaining power between corporations and individuals.

Value creation derived from data in the digital era: A combination and positive externalities

The new “personal data” paradigm is about the new possibilities of data combinations and the possibility of comparing these to a pool of defined data sets. Value can be created both for the producer of the data and its ecosystem.

At L’Atelier we recently published a prospective study for the Forum d’Avignon 2013 entitled “Big Data, Big Culture? The Growing Power of Data and its Outlook for the Economy of Culture.(14)” In this study, we developed in detail some of the strategies of key Internet powerhouses such as Netflix, Pandora or Zynga, regarding the collection and analysis of large sets of personal data, like movie ratings, that will become a standard for the creative industries.

We also took as a specific example the interest in experimenting some ideas to carry out cross-fertilization of data collection and analyses between culture and tourism industries in partnership with private actors: In the summer of 2012, the Côte d’Azur Regional Tourism Committee (CRT) and the

telecommunications operator Orange conducted a pilot experiment intended, firstly, to quantify and model the presence and movements of visitors in the Côte d’Azur region using data collected from their mobile phones, and secondly, to extract the meaning hidden in this data to facilitate and industrialise decision making in managing the tourism offer in the region. Each year, nearly 77 million foreign tourists visit France. The “tourist audience” on French soil contains growth opportunities worthy of the digital economy. For example, the audience visiting from the BRICS countries is experiencing a double-digit growth. Tourism in France affects about one million jobs directly and almost as many jobs indirectly. In 2012, it generated consumption of nearly 138 billion euros, equivalent to 7% of the French GDP. Given these figures and the natural proximity of the two sectors, it is legitimate for the cultural industries to draw upon Big Data initiatives that have already been implemented for tourism, and to consider potential economic synergies based upon shared use of data. In both these industries, it is personal data that has been anonymised and aggregated which provides them with real added-value, allowing them to take better decisions for investment and their respective offers to the public.

From absolute consent to dynamic consent: Create the check-and-balance of the digital age

There are real economic and social values in cross-referencing data. But this has to be done with consent and what I call “dynamic consent.” You always have to carry out a check and balance in order to protect individuals from data-mixing and abusive use of data. This means going back to the dilemma between opt-in and opt-out regarding data protection: There is a need to make the consent process frictionless, and also to allow the person to remove their own data whenever they do not feel comfortable.

One of the best ways to do this could be by businesses adopting a proactive approach to give clients back access to the data concerning them. It has been on the agenda of the UK government for a few years with the Midata project, led by the Bureau for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Midata project is working with businesses to give consumers better access to the electronic personal data companies hold about them. It also aims at giving consumers greater control of their own data. “Giving people greater access to electronic records of their past buying and spending habits can help them to make better buying choices. For example, data that a phone company holds about your mobile use may help you choose a new tariff. (15)” Some of the UK’s biggest companies which are already working on the project include Google, British Gas, Lloyds TSB and O2.

From an individual point of view, the issue about personal data is that you have to experiment the real value of a certain set of data you are willing to share with someone, and to do this you need to be ready to give away a little of your privacy. But you want to be in control and have the possibilities to cancel or opt-out of this sharing phase; to be sure it is not definitive. One extreme example is that of medical records: I am ready to share my medical data with professionals and online services that I trust, but not with corporations that could use it at my expense (car insurance for driving behavior, medical conditions…).

This question of trust is a key element and must be understood in a dynamic context: as a corporation, you can betray individuals once but they will no longer trust you, and a lot of the trade-offs about them are in collecting new data and actions which will occur in the future. Individuals are not giving access to an unlimited gold mine, and they have to be treated with respect, which is good news: The value is more and more in the future data which an individual will share with the services rather than the stock of information that the service has on him (flow > stock). And for one specific reason: If they want to better serve you in the future, businesses have to earn your trust and they cannot abuse it. If this is not the case, you can unsubscribe from their services and go to see a competitor which will potentially take better care of you.

Need for digital and privacy literacy: The analogy with financial literacy

The gate-keepers for individuals will be the trust they have in the institution they are giving or sharing their data with, as well as the atmosphere of transparency regarding its use. There will be a need to implement appropriate tools regarding / securing privacy to let people know what you are doing with their data and how it is benefiting them.

As with the use of new means of payment, there is a need for educating people and giving them tools to be in control. The first time you used a debit card, you may have been likely to make small cash withdrawal or pay a small amount at your favorite store. After you tried it several times, and became confident that it was convenient and secure, you ended up trusting the system because it did not let you down. This is what creating a virtuous circle of trust is: The more you use it, the more confident you are and the more you want to use it in the future. Like for credit, the regulator will probably have to incentivize the private sector to educate their public, and also to take a commitment regarding the lisibility / transparency of the terms and conditions of the services they provide. For example, according to the financial regulations in France, you have to protect the individuals against “themselves” when they make an investment; the bank has to confirm the client has the capacity to understand the risk they are taking.

Raising the level of understanding about privacy and personal data will be necessary to avoid major scandals and maintain people’s trust in digital services as they become more and more sophisticated in terms of usage of personal data. The journey is just beginning…

Matthieu Soulé is a strategic analyst at L’Atelier BNP Paribas. He graduated from the Audencia Nantes Business School with a Master in Management, and has been working within different innovation centres for the BNP Paribas Group, of which the Atelier North America in San Francisco and the Center for Innovation, Technologies & Consulting (CITC) in Paris. He is also the Vice-President in charge of the organization Finance for Youth Diplomacy (www.youth-diplomacy.org). He is a regular contributor to the programmes proposed by the Fondation Télécom including “Privacy” and “New Business Models in the Digital Era.”

1. Noble Foster Hoggson, Banking Through the Ages, 1926.

2. www.economie.gouv.fr/tracfin/accueil-tracfin

3. www.cnil.fr

4. www.acpr.banque-france.fr

5. BNP Paribas presentation, Barclays Conference, New York, September 2013

6. “Citigroup, Microsoft and Morningstar Launch Bundle.com – a new social media site” Jacksonville, 21st Jan 2010

7. http://bundle.com/guide/city/new-york-ny/restaurants

8. http://www.billshrink.com

9. “MasterCard Acquires Truaxis, Inc. to Enhance Delivery of Personalized Shopping Offers and Rewards to Consumers”, Press Release Mastercard, September 6, 2012.

10. History of Mint.com: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mint.com

11. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teengirl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did

12. Disney CFO, Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 conference & Disney CEO – Goldman Sachs Conference - September 24, 2013.

13. http://www.searls.com

14. http://www.forum-avignon.org/fr/publications#3187

15. https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/providing-better-information-andprotection-for-consumers/supporting-pages/personal-data

#digital #privacy #financial services #telecom #foundation #fondation #futures #prospective #L'Atelier #atelier #digital literacy #bank #literacy #banking futureOfPrivacy

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matthieusoule-blog-blog · 11 years

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La jeune génération aspire à plus de confiance et d'empowerment

reprise article publié dans les Echos - Par Matthieu Soulé | 26/08/2013

http://business.lesechos.fr/directions-ressources-humaines/management/la-jeune-generation-aspire-a-plus-confiance-et-d-empowerment-8239.php

Passer d'une ère du contrôle et de la restriction à une ère de la confiance et de l'empowerment - Les valeurs de la jeune génération coïncident avec celles de l’Internet. Elles souhaitent un management différent : plus d'empowerment et de confiance. Sans réponse satisfaisante à ses aspirations, elle fait preuve d'opportunisme.

L’appréhension de l’arrivée à l’âge « adulte » de la jeune génération, cristallisée autour de son entrée sur le marché du travail, tourne parfois à l’opposition stérile entre ancien monde et nouveau monde. Force est de constater que l’on projette souvent sur la jeunesse les valeurs émergentes de la société ; le fait qu’elle sera le monde de demain amène les entreprises qui cherchent avant tout à survivre à travers les âges à s’y intéresser de près. On souhaite ainsi comprendre ces jeunes tout en évitant cependant qu’ils ne prennent trop de place.

La jeune génération actuelle en France, dont je fais partie, fait sa grande entrée dans le monde du travail tiraillée entre ses propres difficultés à pouvoir y accéder et le pessimisme teinté de nostalgie véhiculé par ses aînés. Cet état d’esprit, en partie lié à la crise, peut être poussé à l’extrême et engendrer des réactions comme la tribune « Jeunes de France, votre salut est ailleurs : barrez-vous ! » publiée dans Libération en septembre 2012, incitant les jeunes à sortir du pays pour pouvoir découvrir le monde et profiter de ses nouveaux centres dynamiques. Je souhaite dans un premier temps expliquer le contexte dans lequel notre génération perçoit le monde du travail actuel et vers quoi elle tend pour réconcilier ses aspirations avec le monde de l’entreprise.

Faire ses preuves et préparer sa « future carrière » La défiance de l’entreprise vis-à-vis de la génération entrante

Matthieu Soulé est analyste stratégique de l'Atelier BNP Paribas.

Comme les générations passées, l’actuelle jeunesse découvre avec perplexité que, si la méritocratie et l’investissement sont proclamés comme valeurs fortes dans la société et les entreprises, leur traduction par la reconnaissance et l’autonomie dans ces dernières ne se fait qu’au bout de plusieurs années, voire de décennies. Alors qu’avoir 25 ans semble enviable par tous dans notre société, en entreprise, en France, avoir moins de 35 ans semble se limiter à « se préparer à sa future carrière qui décollera forcément après ». Cette génération découvre aussi naïvement le règne toujours existant de la rétention de l’information à chaque échelon et les luttes politiques perpétuelles en interne, comme d’autres ont dû les vivre par le passé ; mais cela lui semble plus difficilement supportable.

Cette situation est d’autant plus délicate qu’elle se trouve être en contradiction avec ce que notre génération a reçu comme enseignement à l’université ou au cours de ses études sur les nouvelles façons de travailler en entreprise au XXIe siècle, à grand renfort de collaboration, d’outils numériques favorisant l’échange d’information, l’innovation et l’interdisciplinarité. Pour en finir avec ce constat, nous remarquons que notre génération a été encouragée à multiplier les diplômes et à faire autant de stages que possible pour pouvoir être « prête » à entrer en entreprise. Cependant, on explique aujourd’hui à ceux qui ont « eu la chance » de trouver un emploi que c’est déjà beaucoup : pour leurs revendications de reconnaissance et de nouveaux modes de travail, ils devront repasser.

Ainsi les nouveaux modèles d’organisation du travail centrée autour du partage des connaissances et du croisement des profils variés sont-ils sérieusement battus en brèche dans un grand nombre d’entreprises qui semblent percevoir ces initiatives comme des « modes » non fondées et parce que, dans un contexte incertain, mieux vaut ne pas se risquer à de nouvelles façons de faire – après tout, pourquoi changer ?

L’accès aux réseaux sociaux dits « externes » Symbole de la culture d’entreprise ouverte et de la confiance placée dans l’individu

Une des illustrations de cette incompréhension entre la nouvelle génération et l’entreprise est la question de l’accès aux réseaux sociaux dits externes (Facebook et Twitter étant les plus emblématiques) au sein des entreprises. Ce que ne comprennent pas forcément ces dernières, ce n’est pas que l’accès à Facebook ou Twitter serait considéré par ma génération comme une condition indispensable pour travailler en entreprise (j’ai accès à mon téléphone portable personnel pour pallier ce blocage, comme la plupart de mes collègues, jeunes ou moins jeunes), mais que ce blocage démontre plutôt une posture de défiance de la part de l’entreprise vis-à-vis de ses collaborateurset un état d’esprit perçu comme infantilisant.

La confiance n’exclut certes pas le contrôle, mais assister encore aujourd’hui à des discussions dans diverses instances pour savoir si l’ordinateur, l’email et les réseaux sociaux sont des outils de productivité ou, au contraire, d’oisiveté généralisée révèle quelque part un déni de la nature sociale des collaborateurs.Personne aujourd’hui ne penserait à enlever la machine à café, source de non-productivité, si ce n’est que ces échanges sont ce qui constitue une part des liens interpersonnels au sein d’une équipe et instaurent une collégialité qu’aucun outil ne peut fournir. Comme nous le verrons par la suite, cette recherche de sens, ce désir de destinée commune, propres aux grands collectifs, manquent cruellement à notre génération dans le milieu du travail.

Les aspirations et nouvelles frontières des jeunes : les pays émergents, la création d’entreprise et la révolution numérique

En l’absence d’évolution rapide au sein des entreprises traditionnelles, les jeunes se tournent vers la recherche d’un nouveau paradigme pour construire le monde de demain dans lequel ils souhaitent s’épanouir. Leurs aspirations s’articulent autour de l’émergence de nouveaux eldorados allant de Sao Paulo à Shanghai, des aventures entrepreneuriales et de la révolution numérique incarnées par les « barbares du digital » de la Silicon Valley. Même si le nombre de jeunes choisissant une de ces trois alternatives ne représente qu’un faible pourcentage de notre génération, elles établissent néanmoins dans l’imaginaire collectif le point de comparaison et le standard à atteindre en termes de vision du monde du travail.

Ainsi, la dynamique des pays émergents amène à repenser la façon dont notre système de société évolue, y compris dans sa capacité à repousser ses limites actuelles et à résoudre ses problèmes inhérents. L’aventure entrepreneuriale permet de pouvoir assumer la prise de risque et l’autonomie de projets qui peuvent se transformer en belle réussite personnelle et collective. Quant aux « barbares du digital », thème qui nous tient à cœur à l’Atelier, ils permettent un décloisonnement du monde et une recomposition des chaînes de valeurs dans de nombreuses industries, devenus un des symboles du monde en mouvement. Parmi ces acteurs ayant valeur de modèles, Google, né en 1998, et Facebook, né en 2004, dont l’âge médian des effectifs est respectivement de 31 ans et 26 ans (source : Payscale), incarnent chacun ces nouvelles formes d’organisations qui sont décriées par certains et louées par d’autres : Google a été numéro 1 du classement “100 Best Companies to Work For” du magazine Fortune deux années de suite (2012 et 2013)4 et Facebook vient d’être nommé numéro 1 par un autre classement, “Best Places to Work” de Glassdoor (2013).

« Nous construisons un monde plus ouvert et connecté. Vous voulez y contribuer ? » (Facebook)

Alors que les entreprises de toutes tailles se disent rechercher les talents de demain, quelles sont celles qui oseraient proclamer, comme Facebook, des slogans aussi aguicheurs que “We’re making the world more open and connected. Want to help ?” sur son site internet de recrutement ?. Non contente d’émettre un message collectif capable de résonner avec les aspirations de chacun, l’organisation comme la culture du travail de cette jeune entreprise de plus de 4 600 employés (au 31 décembre 2012) impressionnent par le mélange d’efficacité et de satisfaction exprimé par les employés qui y travaillent. C’est pourtant un univers très rigoureux avec un suivi constant des actions menées, le couperet des arbitrages, où les rythmes de travail sont en permanence soutenus.

Mon propos n’est pas ici de dire que toutes les entreprises devraient être des Facebook ou des Google en puissance, notamment parce que la pérennité de leurs activités et l’éthique de leur modèle d’affaire peuvent être sujet à caution, mais que leur modèle d’organisation centré autour de l’empowerment des employés est quelque chose qui renvoie à une profonde attente de la jeune génération actuelle. Cette confiance placée dans les individus pour qu’ils puissent se saisir collectivement des projets de l’entreprise et faire leurs preuves avec vérification a posteriori de leurs apports est vu comme libérateur car elle permet à chacun de saisir sa chance.

La nécessaire transition de l’ère du contrôle et de la restriction à celle de la confiance et de l’empowerment

Je crois qu’il est de plus en plus compliqué aujourd’hui de cerner quelles sont les valeurs propres à notre génération et lesquelles sont propres à l’environnement du Web et du numérique. Les valeurs d’ouverture et d’échanges entre pairs, la possibilité d’accéder à l’information et, notamment, à comprendre comment les décisions sont prises sur le réseau ou dans le monde politique, de pouvoir user de sa liberté d’action et de participer à un projet collectif porteur de sens font partie des aspirations des jeunes dans le monde d’aujourd’hui.

Si l’entreprise arrive à fournir cet espace d’expression et de réalisation à ses collaborateurs, elle peut parvenir à ses fins et faire fructifier sa ressource la plus précieuse tout en satisfaisant l’ensemble de ses parties prenantes. Cet empowerment vital dont nous parlions précédemment est la seule façon de construire ensemble les conditions du travail au sein des entreprises et de redonner leur noblesse aux dirigeants et aux managers qui s’assurent que toutes les conditions sont bien réunies pour la réussite des projets tout en développant une vision claire. Il faut ainsi passer d’une ère du contrôle et de la restriction à une ère de la confiance et de l’empowerment. En l’absence de ce nouveau contrat social, la jeune génération, ne trouvant aucune réponse satisfaisante à ces aspirations, fera preuve d’un opportunisme sans fin et tentera de maximiser son intérêt individuel aux dépends de tout projet auquel elle adhèrera.

L'AUTEUR

Matthieu Soulé est analyste stratégique de l’Atelier BNP Paribas. Diplômé d’Audencia Nantes avec une spécialisation en Consulting et International Strategic Management, il s’intéresse plus particulièrement aux écosystèmes de l’innovation à l’international, notamment à celui de l’Inde, qu’il a découvert pendant ses études à Bangalore, et à celui de la Silicon Valley, qu’il a étudié depuis la filiale de l’Atelier à San Francisco.

Il est également directeur de programme au sein de Youth Diplomacy, un think tank jeune, en charge du programme « Relations Internationales et Nouvelles Technologies ». Il participe activement aux deux programmes de prospective de la Fondation Télécom.

SOURCE

http://business.lesechos.fr/directions-ressources-humaines/management/la-jeune-generation-aspire-a-plus-confiance-et-d-empowerment-8239.php

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