INSEEC U. Corporate Chairs

The challenge of digital innovation and AI in a company and its impact on its strategy and business model, including new media, social networks, agile technologies and cloud-based services.

Such as the processing of huge databases and continuous data flows which, thanks to powerful and varied algorithms, open up new perspectives to help understand the market and customer behaviour, and create new offerings.

The Chair of Digital Research, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence at INSEEC conducts research situated at the complex interface of relationships between people, their work and their economic and social environments. The INSEEC Chair seeks to produce pragmatic and documented outputs with proven scientific foundations by coordinating stakeholders who can interact with companies and research players.

The Chair is structured in relation to an internationally oriented research programme, which consists in:

• Establishing monitoring and observation activities;
• Developing research to analyse the fundamentals of the sector, reflect on its issues and anticipate its trends;
• Identifying innovative practices on these topics and promoting them to companies and other organisations.

It sets out to act as a powerful laboratory of ideas, reflecting freely and prospectively on the challenges of a rapidly evolving technology.

The INSEEC U. Group’s Chair of Wines and Spirits aims to develop research on themes related to wine and spirits by proposing innovative ideas and solutions that attract regional, national and international attention. Its ambition is to be recognised as an international benchmark-setting applied research division in the economics and management of the wine and spirits industry.

The research fields concern all stakeholders in the value chain, including public and private institutions responsible for enhancing the value of territories. The future of wine-related activities is explored, paying particular attention to numerous topical issues (ecological and energy transition, climate, public health, new consumer attitudes, international competition, digitalisation, etc.).

Finally, based on the “think-tank” model, this Chair aims to act as a genuine observatory of international markets for its partner companies, analysing the impact of the micro and macroeconomic factors affecting wine supply, demand and prices. It sets out to bridge the gap between academic research and innovative corporate approaches.

As a genuine resource and competency centre, the Chair of Wines and Spirits seeks to serve professionals by carrying out five types of actions:

• Applied research and the amalgamation of information in the form of observatories and regular reports,
  • Scientific monitoring (academic publications) in wine & spirits economics, business and management,
  • Expertise on specific topics to resolve complex problems in collaboration with professionals,
  • Training for recognised qualifications and tailored to meet the individual needs of professionals (short evening seminars, summer-school-type courses lasting several days),
  • Organisation of high-profile events (conferences, workshops, etc.) on specific topics chosen by the Chair’s Scientific Council.

The Chair’s vocation is to orient its research according to the decisions made by its Scientific Council (mainly composed of partners). At the outset, three orientations were proposed:

GLOBAL SECTOR-SPECIFIC TRENDS DIVISION – MARKET OBSERVATORY – LED BY ERIC LE FUR

• Long-term international market forecasting;
• Big Data mining (data from the partner companies themselves, where appropriate) to increase knowledge of markets and consumers;
• Industrial economics (market organisation, relations between players, etc.), price dynamics (forecasting) and pricing strategy (IA);
• Consumer trends (societal megatrends) and innovations (e.g. BiB of the future), development of e-commerce, notions of customer loyalty/volatility, new influencers;
• Use of experimental economics protocols to further knowledge of willingness to pay and consumer preferences apparent in different countries;
• Continuous review and dissemination of scientific literature for a non-specialist readership.

WINE BUSINESS, OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGY DIVISION – LED BY FRANÇOIS DOMERGUE

• E-commerce, digitalisation of the profession;
• Flow analysis (supply chain, e-commerce, creation of logistics integrators, etc.);
• Wine & Spirits business – Optimisation of operational management, introduction of AI in the Wine & Spirits business;
• Financing (including crowdfunding), transfer, taxation;
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR);
• Operational strategy: Portfolio strategy, recommendations, positioning, distribution, branding – brand creation and perpetuation;
• Environmentally responsible behaviour, ecodesign and product life cycle, communication and production constraints (water-related issues and requirement to declare water consumption during the wine production cycle);
• Talent acquisition and new competencies.

WINE AND TERRITORIES DIVISION – LED BY BENOIT FAYE

• Vineyard impact studies for territories (economic, social and environmental analyses of positive and negative externalities related to viticulture);
• Vineyards and sustainable economic development of territories (territorial strategy);
• Territorial positioning strategy for companies in the sector; environmentally responsible behaviour as a key territorial issue;
• Terroir, territories, culture and landscape (international comparisons, development prospects);
• Wine tourism (international comparisons, development prospects);
• Attractiveness of wine professions and links with territories.

The relationship between INSEEC U. and its partner companies must be built on trust over a sufficiently long period to enable the emergence of tangible solutions and mutual benefits:

• Synergies between the partners’ strategic thinking and our academic research, according to “think-tank” principles;
• Involvement in the Chair’s activities and its orientations via the Scientific Committee, including preferential access to the International Market Observatory;
• Preferential access to advances in research upstream of scientific publication (in articles, case studies, books, etc.), in addition to the scientific monitoring service provided by the Chair;
• Contribution to defining training courses run by the Chair in relation to the partners’ needs (specific seminars, summer school, training for recognised qualifications eligible for in-service training, etc.);
• Close contact with our students, allowing them to present of their company; case study proposals, performance of market research by students, involvement in seminars, internships and work-study programmes;
• Contribution to the partner’s communication strategy – raising its profile and increasing its visibility and prestige through the provision of support for research and innovation;
• Tax benefits: within the framework of a corporate sponsoring agreement, the partner may deduct  66% of the amount donated and withheld from its taxes (up to the limit of 0.5% of annual turnover) pursuant to the Finance Act in force;
• Access to the international networks of the Chair’s academic and professional partners for benchmarking and sharing of best practice.

The Chair of Wines and Spirits is headed by Jean-Marie Cardebat, an expert in wine economics. It is based on long-term partnerships with contracts lasting up to three years, as the initial one-year contract is renewable three times by tacit agreement. The partnerships define the Chair’s scientific orientations via the Steering Committee which ensures its governance and defines the themes of the workshops and the observatory’s areas of study. Each partner has one vote on the Steering Committee, which is chaired by the INSEEC U. Research Director and defines the Chair’s strategic orientations.

This committee is composed of a representative of each partner company, the director and managers of each of the Chair’s divisions, and a representative of the INSEEC U. Research department, who meet to define the work programme and orient the research according to the partners’ needs and expectations.

The Chair organises at least:

• Two workshops per year (possibly in partnership with other research organisations, such as the Institut Scientifique de la Vigne et du Vin (Institute of Vine & Wine Science), European Association of Wine Economics, etc.);
• One annual conference to report on the activities of the Observatory of New Trends (summarised in an annual report).

The Wines and Spirits Chair has built a relationship of trust with each of its partners:

• Castel Frères Group;
• Crédit Mutuel du Sud-Ouest;
• Vinitech-Sifel – Inno’vin;
• Rivercap SA.