Interview

" ATELIS représente une valeur ajoutée à un cursus..."

Igor BIMBAUD New energy sources Business Unit Manager STMicroelectronic

"The traditional ST business model is B to B, that is to say that we sell components to companies that use them to manufacture products for the general public.
Our commitment to new energy sources, consumer expectations in terms of use, cost, portability (form, volume, weight) of the finished products have a direct impact on the specifications of these new technologies.  It is essential to know, at the initial development stage, the buying criteria and consumer habits to better define and anticipate our new components.

We entrusted a study on this subject to ESCEM students, within the context of a Business Intelligence Chair created at the end of 2005 by ESCEM and ST Microelectronics.
We asked them to carry out a consumer survey and question different agents in mass retailing. The survey was based on buying criteria (price, size, weight) as well as on the way people use portable electronic devices (how many calls people make using their cell phone per day, recharging frequency, at what time of the day …)  
This type of approach was new both for ST and for the students and we didn’t quite know what to expect, especially given the limited time the students were given to present their findings.  The results were far beyond our expectations since they enabled us to confirm certain hypotheses but also to integrate new criteria that we hadn’t taken into account beforehand.