The telecoms multinational Altice, one of Exago’s longest-standing and most innovative clients, is heading investment in Innovation and Research and Development in Portugal. Between 2015 and 2017, the group devoted over 200 million euros to activities connected to innovation – almost twice as much as the second company featured in the study recently published by the national Directorate-General of Education and Science Statistics.
The company has been increasing its investment in innovation every year. “This is yet another reason for Altice Portugal to be proud, the public recognition of the investment we are making in the research and development of truly innovative products, and by such a highly respected entity,” says Alexandre Fonseca, the Chairman of Altice Portugal.
The study also shows how this is relevant “to our country’s technological development, because private companies have been responsible for half of the national expenditure in R&D, followed by Higher Education institutions”, Mr. Fonseca adds.
Based on a dynamic innovation ecosystem and in close connection with the academia, Altice Labs, located in the city of Aveiro, is one such example of this investment. Altice Labs has been enabling communications service providers and enterprises to offer advanced services to their customers and users.
The company also launched the international Altice Innovation Awards to promote and recognise entrepreneurship and technological talent in the categories of telecoms, media & content and data & advertising.
Investing in the people
In parallel, an effort is being made to involve more human resources directly in innovation, with 700 people now exclusively committed to Innovation and R&D. Since 2009, Altice has also been progressively engaging the whole organisation to take part in key innovation challenges, using Exago software as a central innovation platform.
More than 11,000 participants have so far shared close to 20,000 ideas in the platform. Hundreds of these have been implemented, generating valuable tangible and intangible returns.
Exago’s software has therefore allowed Altice to improve its offering and develop extensive cost-efficiency actions. The company also registered higher work satisfaction, with 76% of employees aligned with strategic corporate goals (an increase of 18%).
Among many other innovation awards, the resilience of Altice (formerly known as PT) to innovate was recognised with the Exago Innovation Farmer Guru Award in 2016.