Ludovic de Nicolay (E10), managing director of the ZeKat group, tells us about the choices he has had to make as a leader since the COVID-19 crisis began. A source of inspiration and reflection for managers. 

ESSEC Alumni: Can you tell us about your activity? 

Ludovic de Nicolay: I’m the managing director of 3 subsidiaries within a group of 200 people that specialises in mechatronic hi tech. 60% of our activity takes place in France, with the other 40% in Europe. We work with key industrial accounts, SMEs and IoT startups.

EA: How did you respond to the COVID-19 crisis?

L. de Nicolay: We first asked ourselves whether it made sense to continue our activities. On the one hand, they’re not directly related to fighting the virus, or the primary sector of the economy. But on the other hand, they provide the means of communication needed to allow key sectors, such as agriculture, energy, industry, transport and logistics, to function.

With that settled, we then thought about the conditions in which we could continue working. What level of activity should we maintain? What were the economic and health impacts?

EA: What did you decide? 

L. de Nicolay: We chose to maintain our activity as much as possible within the limits of the context, and to opt for as little partial activity as possible, to find the right balance between protecting individuals and the group, economically.

EA: Once you had decided to maintain your activity, what kind of operation did you put in place?

L. de Nicolay: We respected a number of principles. The first was subsidiarity¹, which is something I really believe in. The idea is that decisions are taken at the lowest possible level. You start at the bottom, and any difficulties are escalated to the next level. We were already familiar with this approach because our organisation has always encouraged a lot of autonomy and freedom in terms of decision-making at each level of hierarchy.

EA: Could we also say that it’s a principle that the government is using with companies, by giving them a certain degree of freedom in their definition of lockdown?

L. de Nicolay: Absolutely. Obviously, it prevented us from turning to instructions, standards and processes created by others, and made us question ourselves, take the risk of making mistakes, put our personal responsibility on the line... But it also helped us to think hard, to find the best solution for our unique, changing local context. After all, who better than us to evaluate our own risks and challenges? And, it was truly fulfilling to feel involved!

EA: What other principles do you think should be kept in mind during the crisis?

L. de Nicolay: Another principle is that of reality,which means living in the world as it is, not as we wish it were, as Pierre-Yves Gomez explains so well². The current crisis is a true economic crisis, that is productive, that creates direct and real value, both tangibly and intellectually. It is a reminder of the importance of added value perceived by civil society, compared to strictly financial added value.

EA: Is that criticism of the financial world and its role in today’s economy?

L. de Nicolay: Let’s be clear: finance to support the creation of value is a good thing. But financialisaton³ for financialisaton’s sake and innovation just to innovate mean we lose our sense of reality. We can see this with the investors that abandon struggling industries in search of government aid to compensate for their lack of foundations in the real economy... Today, investors invest 11 days in a business on average. How can that short space of time allow them to grapple with the reality (or realism) of the projects that they claim to support?

EA: Do you not believe in the promises of the startup ecosystem?

L. de Nicolay: I think that the world of startups and investment funds is promoted excessively. Of course, excellent ideas do originate and develop in this ecosystem. But lately it has been leading people to believe in perpetual and exponential growth, which is completely unrealistic.

I saw it recently when I studied the dossiers of more than 20 startups with a view to a buyout by ZeKat. I was taken aback by how every file’s vision of the IoT market differed from ours, and the promises of profitability made by numerous entrepreneurs. They were totally out of line with our philosophy: as our CEO Pascal Denoël says, we are more focused on trying to build a common history than meeting a need for growth. Which brings me to another principle that I believe is important: the principle of solidarity⁴.

EA: What does solidarity look like in the business world?

L. de Nicolay: In industry, we saw labour being lent out, and companies taking initiatives to manufacture or supply health equipment. Thank you to all those who made available 3D printers, stocks of parts, masks or gowns. We also saw solidarity from employees, with those who agreed to carry out their tasks on-site despite their worries, to adapt their working hours and to work from home even though they had children to look after, to take forced leave or be furloughed to take the strain off their employer. So thank you to them too! As Bernard Ennuyer⁵ explains, we can’t imagine autonomy without a lot of dependence.

EA: How does this idea of multiple dependencies apply to companies? 

L. de Nicolay: The more a company grows and becomes complex, the more it develops its various dependencies with its subcontractors, partners, clients and employees. This dependency means independently choosing to help one another. At ZeKat, that meant communicating with our partners to give us food for thought and fuel our decisions at the start of the crisis. In addition to this financial solidarity, none of our partners took advantage of the situation to shy away from their commitments.

EA: A last word?

L. de Nicolay: I don’t know what this crisis will change, or what will remain of it, but we will certainly have to rethink our shared project. My account is absolutely not an in-depth analysis or a life lesson. We don’t yet have enough perspective for that, and the particularity of this crisis is that it challenges all those things of which we were certain. But I think it is important and timely to begin a dialogue and encourage reflection.

¹ Julien Barroche, “La subsidiarité. Le principe et l’application”, Études, vol. tome 408, no. 6, 2008, pp. 777–788.

² https://pierre-yves-gomez.fr/pierre-yves-gomez-interviewe-par-lincorrect-22-il-faut-arreter-de-croire- aveuglement-au-fatalisme-economique/


³ Pierre-Yves Gomez, L’esprit malin du capitalisme, Desclée de Brouwer, 2019


⁴ Sous la direction de Christelle Chauzal-Larguier, Sébastien Rouquette, La solidarité, une affaire d'entreprise ?, U. Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand, 2018

⁵ Bernard Ennuyer, Les malentendus de l'« autonomie » et de la « dépendance » dans le champ de la vieillesse, Le sociographe, 2003