Internship at ARVAL BNP Paribas

What is Arval?

Arval is a car leasing company part of the BNP Paribas group. Its main activity consists of handling the whole of the vehicle fleets life from the purchase of vehicles up to resale.

Arval in a few words:

• First leasing company in France (19% of the market) and seconde in Europe
• 602 000 financed vehicules
• 4300 employees in 22 countries
• The financial stability of the BNP Paribas group

What have I done at Arval?

       My mission during these 4 months at Arval was to support the settlement of a Technological Innovation structure within Arval group. My goals were concerning three complementary activities : developing the technological innovation approach at Arval, studying the stakes around collaborative tools and an activity of technological watch.

Technological Innovation approach:

• Organisation of the technological innovation process in collaboration with Arval's IT and business managers (innovation based on communities which express their needs and ideas. An innovation commitee is in charge of managing the innovation projects)
• Management of the innovation portfolio which is the roadmap of the structure
• Qualification of the ideas expressed by the communities to present them to the innovation comitee (ex: electronic signatures, iPhone application, RFID chips...)
• Providing an instant messaging tool to Arval's employees and working on version 2 of the iPhone application "Arval mobile"

Recommendation around collaborative tools:

• Exressing the needs of the IT and business departments of Arval
• Functional cartography of the collaborative tool currently on the market
• Study of the products on the market (about 10 products analyzed)
• Shortlist of three tools (Google Apps, Sharepoint 2010, Salesforce.com)
• Complete study of the three products (in relationship with the resellers at Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com)
• Recommendation and deployment plan for the selected product (installation planned for the end of the year. Product selected : Google Apps)

Technological watch:

• Creation of a section for technological innovation on Arval's intranet to manage the technological watch, the innovation portfolio and the communication around the innovation structure
• Daily watch using different tools: specialized websites, BNPP's technological watch structure
• Acquire a global vision of the current technologies to be able to analyze innovation projects' relevance

A brief analysis of the internship

       All along my mission I have been given some responsibilities, especially on the project around collaborative tool. On this particular subject, I was the expert and the person to refere to during all my internship. I've worked with numerous of the IT managers at Arval as well as with some major actors of the IT business: Microsoft, Google, Salesforces.com, IBM... The results of the actions undertaken for the technological innovation process and my recommendation around collaborative tools have engaged an innovation dynamics at Arval. We can illustrate the new importance of innovation in the company by the arrival of an innovation director directly under the authority of the marketing director of the Arval group.

I've been introduced to the different factors involved in the settlement of a large and structuring project for the information systems of a worldwide company. The mission I was given was slightly connected to my professional ambitions which are turned toward a consulting position. The discovery of a worldwide company which leads the market has been part of the rewarding experience I've lived at Arval.