Tag Archives: innoveo

Innoveo Solutions, already one year – Part I

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And what for a year :-) We started in October 2007, with 14 people. We are today 16. We started with one customer, we today have 4, which means some great steps on the way to the difficult customer diversification.

So, if you mind (if not, just stop to read this post, very easy ;-), I would like to take some minutes to look back to these extremely intensive 12 months. What have we done? Wow, good question! Let’s try to structure a bit these achievements. And let’s concentrate on the management activities, not on the great delivery and concrete outcome of the whole team. By doing this, it would take much more time. Just too much.

I will divide this “looking-back” process in different parts, too long for one post!

Let’s start with the 3 most important parts.

 

Co-leading Innoveo with Nick

  • Nick, my Business Partner, and myself are working for 8 years together. Our collaboration has evolved step-by-step, and we are leading the company together from the day 0.
  • Still a lot of fun, respect and learnings in this collaboration. And still complementary in our different ways of managing, based on the same foundation of values.
  • I am a lucky guy to be able to work with Nick and I am convinced that our strong collaboration and respect is very positive for Innoveo.
  • We have learnt again a lot how to work efficiently together. Responsibilities are clearly splitted but we benefit from each other everywhere it is possible.
  • We are developing ourselves in our new roles (Board members, leading tactically the company, sales) together and by our own. Specially helped there by our Board.

 

The management Team

  • We are also learning to act all together as an entire and compact Management Team, with Nick, with Philippe (Services and Support), with Lorenz (Technology) and Oli (Product Management).
  • Our roles and responsibilities are becoming more and more clearer. Delegation and cross-deputy roles are better in place. We are operatively leading the company together. The most important tactical decisions are taken together. The strategic orientation is discussed and prepared together for the Board meetings.
  • On the good way to efficiency.

 

The Innoveo people

  • “First who, then what” still in place, with some nice (and complicated) examples.
  • Wow, still the main driver to wake up each morning :-)
  • I really like the cultural mix and our multinational environment.
  • Our team spirit and identity is still extremely strong and both were confirmed from outside quite a lot of time. So it seems that it is not just an “internal” view ;-)
  • Lot of fun und humor, very experienced hard-working people. Extremely motivated. Experts in a lot of areas. Our customers like them! I too.
  • Great cohesion, very good personal development of almost everybody.
  • Nobody left Innoveo (since 8 years now, in the different constellations).
  • We could extend our team with Robert and Conny, two great persons, very well integrated in the team. As if they were by us since years!
  • People = still and definitely our *main asset*.

Next chapters will contain some stuff about:

Founding, Accounting, Administration, Human Resources, Legal, Productizing, Support process, Corporate Identity, Marketing and branding, Sales, Partner Management, Capital and shareholders, Board of Directors.

Perhaps not in this order!

Extremely good news for Innoveo today!

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Although I am already on holidays, I would like to mark this day and to share my excitement with you all!

:-)

After about six months, we have reached a a great team-achievement again.

More “explicit information” to share with you in the coming time!

(and no, this has nothing to do with the fact that we are going to St Barth in some hours!)

Happy sysadmin appreciation day, Olivier!!

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Today, July 25 2008, is … the System Administrator Appreciation Day!!

As a reminder, what is a sysadmin

 

A sysadmin unpacked the server […] from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. […]

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. […]

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers […]

[…] A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work — to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So, now, as you see again what we are talking about, what is this sysadmin appreciation day?

 

What is this sysadmin day?

 

Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.

By us at Innoveo, we have Olivier, our sysadmin!

 

So for us at Innoveo, we have Olivier, our sysadmin :-)

Olivier: this is your day. Umh, already finished, but anyway!

 

Illustrations!

 

Olivier, as usual, kissing his servers ;-)

olivier

Network cable sorting exercise

olivier

Sometimes, you have to be alone to solve some prod issues…And, at the same time, others are just eating a great dinner. Pfffuuuu….

olivier

But, after the effort, some comfort…and cigars. Guess with whom ;-)

olivier

It seems that we still have some “room for improvement”. Gosh!

olivier

OLIVIER HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD SYSADMIN DAY ;-)

Innoveo Launches New Corporate Identity

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Dear customers, partners and friends

After 9 exciting and successful months on the market, we are proud to introduce our new corporate identity. It now represents our personality, culture, spirit and soul in a more appropriate way, as it has been built on our company’s…

VALUES /

  • INNOVATION
  • QUALITY, PROFESSIONALISM AND TRANSPARENCY
  • TRUST AND RESPECT
  • DYNAMISM AND FUN

MISSION /

  • ENABLING BUSINESS INNOVATION

VISION /

  • BE RESPECTED LEADERS IN CONNECTING THE INSURANCE BUSINESS WITH TECHNOLOGY

 

Find below our new Logo and get additional information about our CONSULTING SERVICES and our insurance framework INNOVEO SKYE by visiting our new company WEBSITE.

 

We are looking forward to a continuous successful co-operation and collaboration with you all under our new brand!

For the Innoveo Team,

Didier

PS1: a BIG THANK to Laurent for the great and efficient .Net implementation.

PS2: another BIG THANK to Andreas Koch, our absolutely great designer, for his support, commitment, and creativity.

PS3: another THANK to evaluant for their great Open Source product, EUSS (Evaluant Universal Storage Services).

PS4: and the last THANK to wygwam for their great help in the field of CSS.

Innoveo is proud to be Business Partner of HP!

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We are very proud at Innoveo to announce that we are now officially a Business Partner of HP (Hewlett-Packard) since about one month.

We are member of the Developer & Solution Partner Program (DSPP). Our front-end solution for the Insurance Industry and our company are listed in the worldwide partners and solutions catalog!

innoveo solutions is a software company whose products, services and technologies enable its insurance industry clients to create business value. It provides high-level expertise in software, multi-channel e-business platforms, SOA, architecture, open source, infrastructure in combination with insurance industry knowledge.

This membership is concretizing a solid, trustful and already quite long common partnership. And also the fact that quite a lot of us are former HP employees ;-)

All this was possible thanks to the great and constant support of Petra Wildemann, Worldwide Director Financial Services / Insurance at HP.

cross-posted on the innoveo blog.

First trip to India, Chennai…

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via Wikipedia

In about one week, we will have the pleasure to go to India, and more precisely to Chennai, for a business trip. Wow :-)

Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, Chennai has an estimated population of 7.5 million (2007), making it the fourth largest metropolitan city in India and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

The city was established in the 17th century by the British, who developed it into a major urban centre and naval base. By the 20th century, it had become an important administrative centre, as the capital of the Madras Presidency.

Chennai’s economy has a broad industrial base in the automobile, technology, hardware manufacturing, and healthcare industries. The city is home to much of India’s automobile industry and is the country’s second-largest exporter of information technology (IT) and information-technology-enabled services (ITES), behind Bangalore. The city is served by an international airport and two major ports; it is connected to the rest of the country by five national highways and two railway terminals. Thirty-five countries have consulates in Chennai.

Absolutely impressive! This city has actually more inhabitants than Switzerland! The weather is also quite different as by us: 32°C during the day and a minimum of 20° at night. With 90% humidity…

Innoveo is strengthening its Team :-)

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Very good news today!

Innoveo will have one employee more in 2 months. And what for a new colleague!

First, we have won one nationality more, i.e. we will have 8 nationalities represented in the company (Swiss, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Indian, Slovenian, and Dutch!). Not bad.

Secondly, we have won a very very nice guy.

Thirdly, he is such a great professional, with a huge experience in Software Engineering and Architecture! Incredible :-)

We are extremely proud and honored that, among a vast spectrum of options, such an expert has his choice finally felt on Innoveo.

Thanks … and see you soon!

Back to 2007, some Lessons Learnt

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2007 was a very turbulent, chaotic and exceptional year for me. A year full of lessons learnt and learnings, as intensive as my 2 years at EM Lyon for my MBA.

As I have heard again at leweb3 and from our business and VC friends and colleagues, it seems that there aren’t so many successful cases of spin-out in Europe with innoveo. And with Nick and the whole Team (and the support of Helvetia), we did it!

So, without any prioritization, I would like to share some of my thoughts with you:

  • balancing the “shit” with positive experiences: the work was not always just for fun and very pleasant, we really had some tough times, for sure. For me, it was again important to find a balance between this brutal reality and some “compensations”, as having some great lunches and dinners (yes, including good wines) with friends, having fun to drive my car, taking some pictures (more and more), buying my first “big” watch, and for sure, being able to go on holidays regularly with my wife and my son, specially when we can travel to Saint Barth ;-)
  • solving a very complex issue: needs time and patience. And sometimes a clear massive increase of the complexity to be able to find out a solution! Thanks for this one, Nick ;-)
  • when you think it is finished: it is not finished! If you stay resilient. It can even get worst ;-) Or a solution can suddenly appear in the darkness! Staying tuned and opened for all the opportunities seem to be very relevant, as always playing with worst case scenario. When you have identified this worst case scenario and you know how you will react, then you are really prepared. And normally, the worst case is not happening. More or less, always something “in between”, in the “gray zone”.
  • friends and family: were absolutely essential during this phase. Gosh, it was not an easy time at home for my wife and my son… I was terribly not present mentally, completely focused on the spin-out. And when present, exhausted, or in a terribly mad mood. Let me mention two friends, among others, who were very important for me and gave me the faith to move on with this crazy idea: Manu and Marc. You were both very supportive and very decisive, and perhaps also the two only ones who *really* thought that we had a chance ;-)
  • co-managing a company: I have learnt further on to share and to manage the company with Nick. It is a long journey, specially for me (not really my personality ;-), to co-manage and cross-delegate the company responsibilities. On the other side, I definitely  wouldn’t have been able to manage the spin-out process without Nick. I am deeply convinced that we are working in a very interesting and efficient way. And this deep collaboration was the base for the birth of innoveo, with the support of our Team. We are learning more and more how to work and to benefit from each other, all these, with positive consequences for the company. Even if we know that this “co-managing style” doesn’t correspond to some leadership “best practices”. Specially the ones coming from the military experience. That’s ok for us. And disturbing for some people :-)
  • believing in our values and our dreams: it is very interesting to confront your values and dreams with the “brutal reality”. Always easy to speak about that if you are in a stable phase ;-) Let’s try to do it in a very unstable process, as our spin-out. This brings real and deep learnings about your internal drivers. For me, personally, it was essential to know if the values I believe in since years are really stable and consistent, also in the adversity. This spin-out phase was a good and valuable “proof-of-the-pudding” for that. Also to be sure with Nick that we are sharing the same values fundament. It was absolutely fantastic to see how far this was/is the case, although we were challenging in this field each day of the last year! This is very strong and powerful. And reassuring to know that not all the people just believe in money and carrier.
  • the value is in the team / first who then what: I was always convinced that we had a special team-spirit and that we were sharing the values that Nick and I were sharing, but across the *whole Team*. Always easy to say. Also there, it was really a wonderful and fantastic experience to see how far the Team was compact and stable, despite all the turbulences and uncertainty during about 6 months! And this, at the same time as a huge and difficult delivery time. I will *never* forget some of the most important meetings we had together. Guys, you were so supportive! In a sense, I have felt again how far it is central to share a vision with some guys and how far *they* are much more important to implement this vision.

So, all in all, a bunch of great experiences, more positive than negative ones, this big step with our spin-out of innoveo, some absolutely fantastic confirmations and…new challenges that are coming in 2008 (stabilization and first developments of innoveo).

So, I can just say “thanks” for this great year. It will be difficult to have a more challenging year, although….

:-)