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| In a business where certain product families have been extensively commoditised, innovation is the key to maintaining a competitive edge. Innovation enables a company to create differentiation through unique concepts, new functions and highly original design or differenciating marketing features. Designing innovative, high-performance, ergonomic, attractive products requires a structured research and development strategy backed by adequate resources. |
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| Our research teams focus on around 15 key strategic projects that have a major cross-category impact on the Group’s operations. These projects are managed and tracked centrally by the Technology Department. Development, on the other hand, is handled in a decentralised manner, with engineering offices and teams located in plants to be as close as possible to actual production sites. This approach improves responsiveness, energises the R&D process and shortens product development time. Project platforms, a technology information and expertise intranet, databases and other cross-category resources promote exchanges and sharing within the organisation and the transfer of technologies among business units. These resources also enable progress to be tracked continually. More specifically, we’ve invested heavily in recent years to deploy a Product Lifecycle Management System, which is accessible to all project participants. Its purpose is to consolidate data on a given project and enable real-time updates. |
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Each year, a Technology Forum is organised for R&D teams from across the Group. Held in the French Alps in 2007, the two-day event brought together 150 people from around the world to discuss the Group’s research priorities, share their knowledge and experience of the development process, and receive progress updates on major projects and programs.
Over the past two years, R&D teams and competencies have been considerably reinforced, with the hiring of engineers from a wide range of backgrounds, such as chemistry, nanotechnologies and agro-processing. Research and development programs are also supported by a networked organisation that combines in-house competencies and outside partners, including suppliers, research institutes, universities, industry-leading companies and laboratories. Strengthening our technological resources more and more requires the sharing of ideas and competencies. This is especially true since today’s competitive market environment and shorter lifespans for small domestic equipment have led us to take a highly proactive approach, launching every year a large number of new products and models. This strategy enables us to continuously revitalise our portfolio and energise displays in our sales outlets. |
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Groupe SEB is among France’s 25 leading companies in patent filings
This constant focus on innovation also makes the Group and its brands vulnerable to imitations and counterfeiting of products and models. That’s why it protects itself through patents (86 filings in 2007) and Soleau envelopes—the first step in the patent process, which involves filing a technical brief with INPI* (276 filings in 2007). On the frontline, the Group take steps to combat the counterfeiting of products through systematic market surveillance in sensitive regions—China and the Middle East in particular. In 2007, 16 seizure operations were carried out and 23 lawsuits were undertaken.
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* France’s National Institute for Industrial Property |
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