Learning expedition
Exchange with players from other companies through a customized learning expedition
For more than 30 years, our specialized team has been supporting companies in the organization of personalized learning expeditions to meet with players from other companies in order to exchange on a chosen theme and to learn by feedback.
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Key success factors for a learning expedition
A Learning Expedition is a study tour enabling to benchmark other players’ practices, discuss on a specific theme and answer key questions to move forward.
In order to organize a successful and enriching learning expedition, it is necessary to:
First and foremost, it is necessary to define precise objectives for this moment of exchange and inspiration. Indeed, the objectives of a learning expedition must be in line with the context and needs of the organizing company, and must target the specific challenges.
Consequently, the choice of the targets to be visited (counterparts in other industries, institutions, start-ups, etc.) and their role (top management, operational decision-makers, etc.) is another key element in the success of a learning expedition. It is important to select organizations and stakeholders having the capability to answer your questions with a strong experience in the domain to be explored. They also need to be willing to transparently share relevant experience and actionable practices.
What criteria to define to select relevant targets and how to find them? How to measure the success and impact of a learning expedition?
In order to create a smooth experience, taking care of the environment is crucial. In practice, this means:
- Considering logistical aspects at an early stage to ensure smooth running, and to enable participants to focus on the wealth of information and their collective learning
- Favoring places favoring exchange and inspiration to stimulate creativity and new ideas, to break away from the traditional modus operandi and bring out relevant discussions
Enable everyone to make their own contribution by acting as a facilitator of discussions or sessions
In addition, it is essential to punctuate the “supervised” exchanges with informal times to create links within the group, with a focus on the level of conviviality.
What are the golden rules to ensure a smooth exchange? What are the logistical requirements for the expedition (e.g., location, transportation, equipment, …)?
To ensure the success of the learning expedition and the continuity of its impact beyond the end of the trip, it is important to select the right participants. Indeed, the persons who will take part of the expedition need to be the ones involved in the following transformation. The learning expedition can serve both an objective of getting key insights from the experience of visited companies but also ensuring the commitment for later operational work.
Also, this is important to think all the way how to transform insights into actions once back into the original organization set up. To do so, an outside eye and facilitator is key to synthesize the exchanges, analyze the various information exchanged, and raise opportunities with regards to and beyond the initial objective. This can be done, for example, in the form of an expedition logbook, gathering all insights and associated outputs for the organizing company.
The latter can be used to present the findings of the exploration to all members of the organization, and to put into practice the lessons learned during the expedition. It can also be used to spotlight the participants, highlighting their involvement while promoting new, more outward-looking ways of learning.
How to select the right stakeholders to join the learning expedition? How to ensure the transformation of insights into actions after the expedition?
How we support you in your learning expedition
We design for our clients study trips, or learning expeditions, tailored to their needs and challenges:
- Learning expedition to apprehend the evolution of an organization or a profession
- Learning expedition to transition to a new sales or communication model
- Learning expedition to develop a new concept or a new offer
These study tours thus enable our clients to benchmark other players in complete transparency and to learn from their experiences in order to better understand and prepare for a change
Examples of recent learning expeditions carried out for our clients
Learning expedition to develop a new service-offering for the hospital of the future
Organization of a learning expedition with a leader in medical devices that wanted to define its service offer for hospitals by 2030. In order to better understand the hospital of the future, Alcimed organized a learning expedition composed of visits to the most advanced hospitals in the world and innovative start-ups developing the new hospital services of tomorrow.
This study tour allowed our client to project the evolution of the hospital and to define a roadmap for the creation of new services in order to be a pioneer in responding to different needs projected by hospitals in its market segment.
Learning expedition to better understand industrials’ practices with regards to transparency towards consumers
Our team organized a learning expedition with a global leader in the food industry to exchange with other industrials on the question of transparency towards consumers.
Our client wished to rethink its global approach to bring more transparency to its consumers, especially on all stages of product development. This objective of transparency raised many internal questions on its operational declination from production to marketing. To answer them, we organized a learning expedition with our client to exchange with more advanced players on the topic, to understand their practices and inspire our client’s project team.
This exercise allowed our client to understand the different steps to consider and the actions to be taken to achieve greater transparency for its consumers.
Learning expedition to rethink an automation process and develop robotics in the laboratories of a healthcare player
We supported a leading healthcare player on a robotics and automation project with the final objective to answer one key question: how to achieve an automated end-to-end analytical workflow in all their laboratories? To do so, we proposed and organized a learning expedition to our client to explore how other manufacturers’ laboratories and production facilities were organized in terms of robotics and automation in this field and to get inspiration from their practices.
In collaboration with our client, we therefore visited and interacted with counterparts in several other industries such as aeronautics, food processing, or automotive. This exercise allowed us to generate inspiring ideas that were then transposed to our client’s environment in order to improve their own analytics workflow.
Learning expedition to inspire the creation of a new global product design and compliance department
Our team supported a leading player in the food industry who wanted to move from a local product design and compliance approach to a global and harmonized approach between each region of the world. This important change generated many questions about the operational model of such a new department at our client.
To answer them and facilitate the creation of the new model, we organized a learning expedition with our client’s team, and thus held 5 peer-to-peer meetings in non-competitive environments: with an energy player, a materials player, a pharmaceutical company, a beverage player, and a appliances leader. These various exchanges allowed our client to learn from the experience of other players who have either undergone a similar transformation or have already been organized for a long time as its target organization.
This “study tour” finally helped to decide on the operational structure of the new department and generally facilitated the decision making on the various outstanding issues.
Organization of a Learning Expedition to reboost innovation within the business unit of an industrial player
Our team helped the business unit head of a leading industrial company in re-energizing its innovation process through the organization of a Learning Expedition with other inspiring industrial players.
First, our team defined the concrete objectives and criteria with our client to further identify interesting companies and stakeholders to contact. We then validated a list of potential targets with our client prior to launching discussions and reaching agreement for the organization of two learning expeditions. By organization, we mean initiating contact, taking care of the logistical aspects, facilitating the exchanges, as well as summarizing of the various outputs arising from these two moments.
These expeditions enabled our client to identify levers to re-boost their innovation process, involving his team in meeting peers and exchanging on best practices, sharing different innovation approaches but also building a network of people having a common interest.
Organization of a learning expedition to help a client moving away from a product offering approach to a full service or subscriptions approach
One of our clients, an industrial player, recently conceived and designed an innovative approach for its products by offering its customers rental packages. The objective of this new approach was to enable the group to move from an approach centered on the sale of products and associated services to a full-service value proposition centered on customer use.
In this context, our team helped our client in selecting and preparing 5 main themes of interest, identifying players who have successfully set up a service offering for the circular supply of consumables in industrial environments, and organizing a learning expedition.
The main output of this project for our client was identify key success factors and additional operational insights for setting up their new service offering.
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Founded in 1993, Alcimed is an innovation and new business consulting firm, specializing in innovation driven sectors: life sciences (healthcare, biotech, agrifood), energy, environment, mobility, chemicals, materials, cosmetics, aeronautics, space and defence.
Our purpose? Helping both private and public decision-makers explore and develop their uncharted territories: new technologies, new offers, new geographies, possible futures, and new ways to innovate.
Located across eight offices around the world (France, Europe, Singapore and the United States), our team is made up of 220 highly-qualified, multicultural and passionate explorers, with a blended science/technology and business culture.
Our dream? To build a team of 1,000 explorers, to design tomorrow’s world hand in hand with our clients.
Learning expeditions are organized for players who are facing a specific challenge linked to a change (organizational transformation, implementation of a new process, development or launch of a new offering, etc.) and are looking for feedbacks from other companies and people who have already experienced the same challenge. A learning expedition generally takes place in several stages, and on the sites of the players sharing their experience.
Organizing a learning expedition has many advantages in comparison with on-field interviews, such as:
- Being in direct contact with key stakeholders / counterparts
- Reaching high-level stakeholders ready to exchange experience and key insights
- Avoiding information filter with reporting provided by a third party
- Discovering a new approach to capturing best practices from inspiring players with the possibility to have fruitful detailed discussions
- Networking with counterparts and top players in other sectors