OREANDA-NEWS. ENGIE boosts its transformation with the creation of its Digital Factory, a global Centre of Excellence dedicated to supporting the digital transformation of operational entities.

Placed under the responsibility of Yves Le Gélard, ENGIE Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer, the Digital Factory will gather around a hundred internal and external experts, in addition to all the digital experts already present within the Group, who will bring their expertise to the ENGIE’s 24 business units across the world, and thus foster their transformation projects and digital programmes.

The Digital Factory will enable ENGIE to develop applications on platforms, on a large scale, in order to improve operational performance and to offer new products and services to its residential, business and industrial customers whilst improving its clients’ experience. The fields of application are infinite and could potentially impact all Group’s businesses – from predictive maintenance of industrial facilities over to the customer journeys, or smart cities. Several priority areas have been identified on topics such as big data, mobile apps, and the Internet of Things.

“In an energy sector that is in the midst of a revolution, digital technology is an essential component of our offers, a key competitiveness factor and a powerful lever for the transformation of our processes. Thus we choose to invest to develop our own cutting edge digital competencies, mobilizing global partners through excellence platforms”, said Isabelle Kocher, ENGIE Chief Executive Officer. “These platforms, gathered within the Digital Factory, will enable us to accelerate the implementation of the Group transformation plan.”

ENGIE is announcing two partnerships with global leaders:

  • C3 IoT, one of the leading Silicon Valley companies working on big data and data analysis. This partnership is built in particular on ENGIE’s use of C3 IoT’s platform, which is designed to manage data from smart objects and can deal with high-volume and high-performance requirements. The aim is to support ENGIE’s development in the digital economy in keeping with the exponential growth in smart devices.
  • Kony, one of the global leaders in the field of mobile apps for smartphones and tablets. The aim of this partnership is to enable all Group entities to accelerate the time to market of mobile app projects and to strengthen the digital expertise of ENGIE’s teams as a way of offering new user experiences to customers and employees.

These two agreements follow the May 2016 agreement with Fjord, Accenture’s design and innovation studio, which aims at creating digital services likely to disrupt the business and residential markets.

The creation of the Digital Factory is a key milestone in ENGIE’s three-year transformation plan: the Group is aiming to redesign its portfolio by focusing on its three business areas: low-carbon electricity generation, energy infrastructures, and integrated solutions for its customers (residential customers, business customers, and territories). To do this, the Group has launched a €15 billion portfolio rotation programme and a €22 billion investment programme. ENGIE plans especially to invest €1.5 billion in new businesses and digital over three years.