Technological innovation of France Telecom Group

France Telecom has always attached great importance to scientific and technological innovation, so it has formulated a long-term scientific and technological innovation strategy and determined specific strategic measures, such as focusing on integrating internal resources, giving full play to overall advantages, facing customers and focusing on innovation. At the same time, the basic operating mechanism of scientific and technological innovation is mainly reflected in many aspects, such as vigorously investing in scientific and technological innovation, establishing a strict and orderly scientific and technological innovation project organization system, senior talent training mechanism, process management mechanism, incentive mechanism, internal organization and coordination mechanism, external cooperation mechanism and achievement protection mechanism.

As the world's leading operator, France Telecom has always attached great importance to scientific and technological innovation. It positions itself as "the market pioneer of the most advanced usage", and through continuous innovation, it constantly improves its comprehensive innovation ability and provides a source of strength for the company's sustained growth. This paper systematically introduces the basic situation, strategic measures and basic operation mechanism of France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation, with a view to providing reference for domestic operators. In order to do a better job in scientific and technological innovation, R&D Department of France Telecom has formulated a long-term scientific and technological innovation strategy, defined its own mission and positioning, and determined specific strategic measures, which have made great contributions to the development of France Telecom through careful implementation.

1. Integrate internal resources to make them more focused on defining the growth direction for the Group through innovation.

In order to make R&; The direction of D is consistent with the short and medium-term market demand, and the R&D department has set up a strategy committee. Through close cooperation with various business departments, R&D Department will focus on projects with great development potential, such as videophone, ADSL TV and IP videophone service for enterprise users.

2. Give full play to the overall advantages and carry out business innovation and integration across divisions.

France Power R&D Department serves all the operating units of the Group (including branches around the world) through business innovation and application innovation. Every R&D center (CRD) has cross-business research projects, with the purpose of giving full play to the comprehensive technical advantages of CRD, so that the achievements of R&D, especially new businesses and applications, can be applied and promoted to the greatest extent in all operating units of the Group, and the maximum return on investment can be obtained. For example, the same wireless technology WiFi can be used to develop Wanadoo eXtensive WiFi package for home users and Orange WiFi solution for mobile users. The R&D department has also established a 14 skill center in key technical fields to ensure that the whole group, especially all business divisions, can get relevant professional technical support.

3. From business orientation to customer orientation.

After the reorganization, France Telecom changed from the traditional business-oriented organizational structure (only the marketing and sales departments face customers) to the customer-oriented organizational structure. Within the group, the R&D department of France & Electricity has also made similar adjustments: in the direction of "strategy" and "technology", there are departments that are in contact with the operating units within the group (the "strategy" direction is in contact with "residential communication service", "personal communication service", "domestic sales and service" and "international department"); The direction of "technology" is related to "enterprise communication service" and "content integration"), and is responsible for understanding the market demand and determining the direction of research and development.

4. As a full-service operator, encourage innovation and advocate innovation strategy.

The R&D department of France & Electricity derives innovative requirements from six perspectives from the perspective of user needs, such as table 1. The R&D department of France Telecom spans different strategic business departments of France Telecom Group and becomes the cornerstone of the company's strategy. At the same time, the R&D department encourages all units to strengthen cooperation with all units of the Group, making innovation the core driving force for the growth of the Group.

5. Extensive participation in long-term research projects

Another famous idea of R&D Department of France Power is to create value for the Group by developing tomorrow's services. In the annual R&D investment, long-term scientific research projects account for 15% ~ 25%. The R&D department of France and Electricity has invested extensively in 15 "world-class" research fields, including security, ergonomics, man-machine dialogue, video, voice, audio, communication components, knowledge management, forecasting tools, distributed software architecture, software engineering, traffic modeling, network optimization, optimization technology, digital technology and antenna.

6. Pay attention to intellectual property rights and expect returns.

The R&D department of France and Electricity attaches great importance to innovation and intellectual property protection, regards patent acquisition as a sub-process in the project development process, and puts forward the annual assessment index for each laboratory to apply for patents. Under this encouragement, R&D department applied for more than 200 invention patents every year, reaching 4 15 in 2003. The R&D department's income from intellectual property also began to increase rapidly: in 2003, it signed a patent right agreement with Qualcomm for the third generation mobile phone Turbo code, which brought considerable income to the company. Excellent work in international communication protocols and standards will also win opportunities and huge economic benefits for the company.

7. Actively promote the internationalization strategy

The laboratories of R&D Department are located in three continents. Even in China, the R&D department has some researchers of other nationalities. Regular communication enables researchers to join research teams in different countries and enjoy their working methods, understanding of applications and users' expectations. The research work in different fields with innovation potential enables the R&D department of France Power to predict the needs of various business departments and find technological breakthroughs and innovative applications. Being close to the international operation units of the Group enables the R&D department of France Power to support its business and application development work more effectively, establish a competitive advantage for the Group and its subsidiaries (including Orange, Wanadoo and Equant), and strongly support the internationalization strategy of the Group. The French R&D Electric Power Department has also established a new R&D regional center in Beijing. His research interests include mobile and converged terminals, open source technology, IPV6, wireless systems, language and voice processing, innovative applications and multimedia services.

8. Broad cooperation strategy

In order to bear the cost of R&D, cultivate the market and exchange research ideas, the R&D department of France and Electricity has carried out extensive cooperation with operators, manufacturers, universities and enterprises. The purpose of cooperation with operators is to find the best way to gain competitiveness and market opportunities through cooperation. Cooperation with multinational companies (such as Deutsche Telekom, etc.). ) generally pay more attention to the universality and ease of use of the business. Through the exchange of technology, strategy, standards and other issues, we can gain knowledge as soon as possible, which will affect the achievements of ITU-T and other standards organizations, so as to gain technical and market opportunities (such as the cooperation between French R&D department and France, the European Union and Telefonica in the field of family services). Actively promote the internationalization strategy and extensive cooperation strategy. It will help the Group successfully launch products and services with global brands. 1. invest heavily in scientific and technological innovation

In order to do a good job in scientific and technological innovation, France Telecom has invested a lot of money. From 200 1 to 2003, the investment in R&D department reached 567 million, 576 million and 478 million euros respectively, accounting for 1.32%, 1.24% and 1.03% of the group's total revenue in that year.

2. Organization system of scientific and technological innovation

In order to effectively manage numerous R&D departments, the R&D department of France and Electricity has established a strict and orderly organizational system, as shown in Figure 2. The R&D department of EDF consists of three senior coordination units, nine R&D functional departments (directions) and six CRDs. In addition, there is an international laboratory that manages all overseas regional sites or laboratories.

3. Talent training mechanism

At present, there are 4,200 R&D personnel in the R&D department of France-France Power, with an average age of about 40 years. In the process of recruiting employees, R&D departments pay more attention to diversity, such as different gender, nationality, educational background and different work experience. At the same time, France and France also attach great importance to the training of scientific and technological personnel, and invest a lot of money to train and organize scientific and technological personnel to study every year. At the World Telecommunication Standards Conference held from June 5, 2004 to June 5, 2004, six researchers from R&D Department of France and France were elected as the chairmen or vice-chairmen of seven ITU-T research groups, and four of them still hold posts in ITU.

4. Process management mechanism of France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation project

In the process of the project, the steering committee is responsible for grasping the direction of the project. The Committee may be composed of technical management and project organization leaders and CRD related personnel. When the project reaches a key milestone, the steering committee will organize the inspection of the project and complete key decisions. Important projects can be checked by "technical" direction or "strategic" direction. The project process management method adopts quality management system (SMQ), and Europe adopts SPICE as the software development process standard, which is similar to CMM.

5. France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation project incentive mechanism

There are two main incentive measures for R&D, one is law and electricity.

(1) short-term incentive mode

Bonuses are paid once every six months, taking personal work performance as the assessment standard and the realization of personal work goals and the market value created as the scale. Technicians can get 0% ~ 20% annual salary bonus; Middle managers can get 0% ~ 30% annual salary bonus; 10 senior managers can get bonuses of 0%-40% of their annual salary.

(2) Long-term incentives

Wages are approved once a year. Make strategy at the beginning of the year and control at the end of the year. In addition, the R&D Department of Law and Electricity also has a company performance award. If the performance of the whole company was good in that year, then every employee can get a bonus related to his position at the end of the year. But if the company's performance is not good, everyone's performance award is zero.

Encouraging employees to hold shares is also a basic and natural incentive means. For example, the R&D department has a five-year deposit plan, and employees who participate in the plan can be tax-free. As a matter of fact, most employees in the R&D department of France Power have bought shares in the group. At the same time, in order to commend innovative teams and individuals, FADEC holds innovation awards every year, from which we can learn about FADEC's innovation orientation. These six awards include: scientific suggestion award, growth award, performance award, comprehensive operator award, patent and value award and special research and development award. D "award.

6. The internal coordination mechanism of France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation.

The strategic focus and organizational distribution of various departments of France Telecom are different in all parts of France, and the decentralized structure enables each station of R&D department to communicate and cooperate with relevant operating units nearby. As a whole, the R&D department can fully understand the overall market demand and technical business demand of various business divisions and regions, so as to make more targeted R&D work plans. Objectively speaking, this structure promotes the coordination between French telecom market strategy and product research and development. For example, Equant's product and customer experience department is located in Sofia, while the R&D department of Sofia factory focuses on the research and development of enterprise communication services. The main institutions of this website are BIZZ's data service integrated management and DIAM laboratory. BIZZ's 350 researchers are located in five sites, providing products and services for enterprise users.

7. External cooperation mechanism of France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation

In order to do better in innovation, France Telecom has carried out extensive cooperation with external institutions. For example, in 2004, the R&D department of EDF had 98 foreign cooperation projects, including 57 projects with the information society technology (IST) organization of the European Union, 33 projects with the National Research Department, and 8 projects with other European fund organizations. Most of these projects are long-term research projects, mainly involving high-speed network, network management, Internet, mobile communication, artificial intelligence and multimedia services, with an average annual research funding of more than 4 million euros.

8. France Telecom's scientific and technological innovation protection mechanism

Business innovation has always been the focus of France Telecom, and customer demand is the inexhaustible motive force for group innovation. As the protection of innovation, creativity and other achievements, Fadian Group attaches great importance to patent application and intellectual property protection, pays attention to the protection of the project process and final results, and makes profits through the use of licenses by other companies. France Telecom also puts special emphasis on the work of "proposing standards and promoting their acceptance by international organizations", because once it is adopted as an industry standard, it will bring great benefits and initiative to the company.