Like almost all large groups, Engie employs a Chief Data Officer. With more than 100,000 employees, the company only has five members of the central data management, including CDOs.
Sign of the organization’s lack of interest in the use of data and artificial intelligence? Absolutely not. Engie has chosen a very decentralized model, with skills directly attached to the entities and businesses.
Data engagement through practice
“We are here to support the group on the strategy, the tools, with the implementation of solutions that are as standardized as possible, to allow the whole group to share its data”, declares Chantal Alario, project manager with the CDO.
The specialist is involved in various projects, around biases and ethics for example. Since 2023, it has also participated in the creation of an internal Data Academy. And also the deployment of a data culture?
The Data Office is aiming for an inflection in this area, as she was able to explain during an event organized by DataScientest. “We try to avoid talking about Data Culture (…) to favor the Data commitment of employees, or really involve them in the work and progress.”
Culture yes, but accompanied by practical work. In order to allow Engie employees to practice, the company and its Data Office are promoting low code no code tools, says Chantal Alario.
Boosters for top management and professions
The ambition is to encourage the realization of digital projects by employees themselves. But it is also a question of making the Data and AI concepts concrete, as well as allowing the businesses to better formalize their needs with the experts.
The appropriation by low code no code thus participates in the development of “a common language” according to the Engie project manager. To the uses of the tools, the energy specialist adds training and acculturation sessions.
With the “boosters”, Engie trains its “future top managers” as well as all its business specialists with a view to advancing acculturation. Or rather “commitment”, corrects Chantal Alario. These actions contribute to improving the maturity of the entities.
Recruitment or reskilling?
The specialist notes that this maturity has a clear impact on the HR strategies put in place. Not very mature, organizations will tend to favor external recruitment rather than reskilling.
“It is very difficult to convince them to start with people with business knowledge and to make them progress on Data skills”, she testifies.
More mature, other entities are more receptive to reskilling towards data analysis, then data science gradually. For Engie, this strategy offers new opportunities for employees.