Pioneering with Purpose - Lyreco hosts its inaugural Demo Day Event
On 27 April, we hosted our first Demo Day in Brussels as part of our new intrapreneur programme Lyreco Pioneers. The event was an opportunity for six shortlisted teams to pitch their ideas to a panel of internal and external judges in front of a live and online audience.
This is the first year that we run our Lyreco Pioneers programme and the response has been overwhelming with 261 submissions received in the first round. The original brief called for concepts that could either help simplify the way in which we manage internal or customer processes or further the work already undertaken by Lyreco as a leader in the sustainability space.
After the initial selection process, six ideas were taken into the Incubation Phase providing the selected teams with an opportunity to be coached on what it takes to develop a business concept by external partner Schoolab, an Innovation Studio that specialises in training clients in responsible innovation.
Innovation is not just written on the walls at Lyreco, it is part of what we want to do every day. But even within a business that has a history of pioneering new ways to deliver great working days for our customers, it is often hard to capture all the ideas that are being generated internally.
The launch of Lyreco Pioneers provides our teams with an opportunity to release their pioneering spirit. To be a pioneer you need to push the barriers - to look at the impossible and go further to challenge the status quo.
Sometimes it is difficult and sometimes we fail but we consistently try to get better – particularly when it comes to sustainable practices. I am incredibly proud of this initiative and believe in its ability to help make us greater!
Chief Executive Officer at Lyreco
And the winner is...
The Demo Day was a high energy event with teams given only 6 minutes to convince the judges of why their idea should progress to the Acceleration Phase. With Passion being a key Lyreco value, it was evident how much work had gone into preparing for this day.
The winning idea was from Jaroslaw Chwastowicz and Krzysztof Szewczyk from Lyreco Poland who pitched a Sustainability Dashboard concept. They now have four months to turn their business prototype into a live service that can be tested with customers.
Picture, from left to right: Maxime Chabaud, Krzysztof Szewczyk, Jaroslaw Chwastowicz, Grégory Liénard
We saw some great thinking in the presentations which reflected the commitment Lyreco people have to simplification and sustainability.
The winning project was chosen because it can add true value to the way in which our customers track and report progress relating to sustainable practices in their workplace.
At Lyreco, we have one north star: delivering great working days to our customers, and we are very optimistic that this project will become a great enabler of this.
Innovation, Sustainability and Strategy Director at Lyreco
Next steps
In recognition of their achievements, all the Lyreco Pioneers will be attending the VivaTech event in Paris in June. Their ideas will also be reviewed by the local country MDs to see if they can be taken further.
Based on the success of the first year of the program, Lyreco will start the search for its next group of Pioneers in September.
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