OREANDA-NEWS. Carrefour will be one of the partners of the 1st Start-Up Summit organised by Challenges, scheduled for 6 April at the Palais Brongniart.

Hervé Parizot, Carrefour France's head of e-commerce and client data, will be talking as part of a roundtable discussion on the theme: Big can be smart – when major groups adopt and give impetus to the start-up culture.

Since it was founded, innovation has truly been one of the mainstays of Carrefour's development: creativity is encouraged at all levels within the group as a way of enhancing the customer experience across the various formats and numerous channels via which it operates. Carrefour acquires new expertise and supports high-potential start-ups as a means of innovating. This is so as to create promising ecosystems and make life easier for the 13 million customers that its stores welcome every day throughout the world.

Innovation goes hand-in-hand with agility. That's why it's important to draw on support from young minds with cutting-edge expertise. For some time now, Carrefour has been working with start-ups from a range of different sectors. It has entered into partnerships with Fitle (virtual fitting room), Echy (hybrid lighting systems), ABTasty (A/B testing) and Critizr (gauging customers' opinions).

Since 2015, Carrefour has been a member of the Partech Growth investment fund, set up to make it easier to share ideas with technical start-ups in France and at international level; and this year, the Group will be taking part in the Smart Food innovation platform in Paris.

The Carrefour Foundation also supports charity-focused start-ups, such as Goodeed.com which allows its users to make free donations to organisations.