Susciter un sentiment d'urgence auprès des PME wallonnes pour les encourager à innover dans un système en transition vers la nouvelle économie

Abstract

The digital economy is changing the standards of business. Companies must adapt to seize opportunities by disrupting the system with new technologies, new processes, new products or new business models. Id Campus, an innovation stimulator based in Liège, understood this challenge and was looking for a way to make Walloon companies aware of this situation. This reflexion led to the elaboration of the main topic addressed in this report: “how to create a sense of urgency within Walloon companies to encourage them to innovate in the new economy?” This thesis discusses the effects of a participative workshop aimed to think about the future of a country, sector, company, etc. The considered method takes the form of a game as it calls for imagination and creativity. The purpose is to deal with a sector taken in the transition of a system. The participants must: - identify which shifts & triggers could rush the system; - choose which values must be considered as essential; - imagine which path the system could follow; - assess the final situation of the system. The results of this study are positive in the sense that an improvement of the optimism and a rise in the awareness of opportunities were observed among the participants. Even if those observations are partial, they contribute to increasing the sense of urgency in an incremental way. However, for now, there is no assessment device to measure the sense of urgency. This is why this data is not fully attested. With application of the recommendations I made at the end of this report, anyone could use this tool to increase the sense of urgency within their organization.