Caroline VALENT, consultant in development strategies, tells us about her career from graduating in 1994 to creating the BEEZ consultancy firm, and the importance of SKEMA training in her life as an entrepreneur.
1994 graduate Caroline VALENT, today a consultant in development strategies, tells us about her career and the contribution made by her SKEMA training to her daily life as an entrepreneur
Caroline VALENT, SKEMA Lille graduate 1994, talks about her training at SKEMA and her various experiences leading to the creation of the BEEZ consultancy firm.
"Over the past 17 years, I have developed businesses in different sectors and markets. Throughout my career, I have benefitted every day from the training I received from SKEMA, especially in marketing and sales.
In taking both options, I built the foundations of my career in development and company creation.
While following the marketing option, I practised sales and negotiation techniques by taking part in various sales contests, either within the school or between schools, and in particular the Deauville contest. They helped me to understand the real importance of marketing in practical terms:
- the impact achieved by a proposal when it is based on clear commercial positioning; in other words, a competitive edge which is simple and differentiating (the sales pitch is the tool with which one can test its value),
- the importance of the suitability of the sales techniques adopted to reflect the client's claims to which one is committed (the manner of selling indicates the quality of the firm's commercial strategy, the sales results indicate its performance),
-the impact of profitability on sales figures (marketing goals define the operational value of a business model).
The school is also a place where one can pursue one's own experience by joining, or even creating, an association, which is what I did. During my 3 years at the school, I took advantage of all the opportunities to confront challenges and prepare my entrance into professional life.
Today, after doing the same on behalf of shareholders, I have set up my own company called BEEZ.
Since 2009, I have developed a new-generation concept of a firm offering consultancy and assistance in development strategies which is based on a pragmatic approach (recommendations designed to make the director autonomous in his development), a client-based vision (building a performance strategy which always starts from the client's point of view), and human values in the way we assist our clients (ambitions must always be expressed and produce their results in an economic, social and environmental world undergoing constant change, increasingly digital, mobile and social).
This is why we have moved to the heart of an ecosystem of NICT enterprises, Euratechnologies in Lille, which symbolizes the changing model we are witnessing in our western society."
Synthesis of Caroline VALENT's career :
1994-1997: participation in the second phase of development undertaken by Haägen Dazs, agri-food industry, in France.
1998-2001: participation in the development of a start-up which became the subsidiary of an American group, GTS Omnicom, during the first 5 years of its activity in the telecommunications sector (launch of a market and development of the first Internet and mobile offers).
2002-2008: development of a global back-office service proposal for the international 3 Suisses group, distance selling, creation and development of the Franco-Tunisian subsidiary Mezzo for customer relationship services.
2009...: creation and development of the Cabinet BEEZ, providing consultancy and assistance in development strategies.
Our congratulations on this rich career and its crowning success.
>>A reminder that Caroline Valent lanched the ADETEM club ("Association Nationale des Professionnels du Marketing") in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region with Brigitte Albrecht, Director for Marketing and Admissions Group SKEMA, and Director of the Masters Specializing in Direct Marketing and Electronic Commerce, whose next lecture will be held on January 26th, 2012, at SKEMA Lille, on the theme : "Why brands?".