Case study: creating value with Electricité de France

Why formally develop people if, as Electricité de France (EDF) – one of the world’s largest energy companies, owned by the French government and hitherto monopoly supplier of electricity to France – you recruit the best from the best institutions? After all, such talent brings with it extensive networks across the highest arenas of political, commercial and academic power that ensure continuous subliminal development.

There is one main reason why executive development remains vital – major change.

Over the last five years, EDF acquired 100 percent of what is now EDF Energy (UK), became a significant shareholder in EnBW (Germany) and Edison (Italy), and made selective investments in Eastern Europe (Poland and Hungary) and China, the latter mainly through partnerships on nuclear engineering. This clear European footprint, shadowed by substantial investments in Argentina and Brazil, demands integration.

Going forward, opening of its capital (IPO of 15 percent in November 2005), introduction of competition, disaggregation of the vertically integrated business model and increasing deregulation present even greater challenges.

Accelerated transformation

Accelerated transformation and cohesion of the expanded Group were identified as essential precursors for success in the deregulating energy market, particularly given EDF’s responsibilities as a global ‘merit good’ provider combined with their need to improve performance in order to fund future investments.

To this end, the EDF Corporate University was established and chose Cranfield School of Management as one of three founding business school partners.

Why Cranfield? “We chose to partner with Cranfield for three main reasons,” says Michel Marchand, Director of Education for EDF’s Université Group. “Firstly, EDF needed a business school partner from the UK in order to take full advantage of the country’s experience in the liberalisation of energy markets. Secondly, because Cranfield met the high standard we were looking for, and finally because of their very original approach in terms of executive education. Two years later, we are very happy with our choice.”

The challenge

The Cranfield partnership:

• Provides provocative, pragmatic development for the top echelons of highly capable, highly educated individuals across EDF Group.
• Attracts participants from international subsidiaries to leverage diversity and evolve a shared Group culture.
• Creates participative and safe learning environments in a culture that is more accustomed to reflective, assessment-centric formality.
• Challenges participants to translate commercial thinking into practice at their level of the business.

Specifically, working in close partnership with the top team at EDF’s Corporate University, directing and involving specialists from other business schools such as Insead, ESCP-EAP and London Business School, Cranfield designed and delivers an integrated suite of four-day programmes for the organisation’s Young Executive population, helping participants to understand and manage People, Strategy, Markets and Performance in the context of EDF.

To date, some 200 EDF Young Executives from France and the French colonial islands, England, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic have attended programmes at Cranfield in the UK and at EDF’s Corporate University at Chatou, Paris.

Cranfield’s faculty also provides expertise on core transformational subjects such as Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Innovation to build shared awareness and competence throughout the three top management ranks in light of the new, more commercial agenda.

This partnership fuels a forward-looking and global dialogue, enlarges debate on strategic issues, grows the recognition of EDF as an international group that includes cultures beyond that of France and spawns new informal networks across functions, business units, subsidiaries and management layers.

Making a difference

Notwithstanding the above, sustainable value created through executive development is ultimately measured by the extent to which executives go on to produce greater results in their ‘day jobs’. What evidence do we have that such value-added application of learning is taking place at EDF? It is early days. Only a handful of individuals have completed the full suite of programmes; but first indications bode well. Leaving the final words appropriately to an EDF participant: “I am acutely aware of [competitive strategy and]… the need to be innovative, …[to] understand the competition and the customer when I advise our sales and marketing departments. The challenge for me is to consolidate what I have learnt and implement more of it into the manner that both my team and I work.”