Be Nomad: an app serving corpoworking and nomadism at BNP Paribas Cardif

The Be Nomad idea was born in 2017, in a pre-COVID19 world. And yet, the transformation of working methods was already underway with projects and discussions around places, spaces, collaboration and the CSR impacts of commuting.

"With this application, create the use that is yours, there are a thousand uses and especially the one that you will make of it. ”
Anne Cavaliere, business mentor and co-creator of Be Nomad

A project born of an ambition: promoting new ways of working and freeing employees from geographical constraints

In early 2018, IFS (now IPS) launched the IFS.alpha challenge with the BNP group’s accelerator to call on BNP Paribas group employees to innovate. Out of 80 competing projects, eight are selected to be incubated at BivwAk!, including the Be Nomad application. Born from the initiative of BNP Paribas Cardif employees, it wants to offer a corpoworking and nomadism solution for all BNP Paribas employees. The Be Nomad application consists of valuing the Group's real estate assets by allowing its employees to reserve a "nomad" work position in one of its partner buildings for the project, without it being their attached building. This project stems from the conviction that freeing employees from geographical constraints makes it possible to:

Promoting well-being
Reduce the carbon footprint
Expand horizons and develop the network within the Group
Increase efficiency

Thanks to their selection during the IFS.alpha challenge in June 2018, Be Nomad is launching its beta test. In September 2018, the project was transferred to BNP Paribas Cardif.

"Be nomad is an excellent initiative that is completely in line with supporting employee mobility. ”

End-to-end support through the crisis…

In France, Talan has supported the founders of Be Nomad from the start of the project, in particular through the positions of Product Owner and Swissknife, to its marketing through three key stages: building, developing and – the health crisis involving the project – pivoting.

March – September 2018 : Build

Our consultants worked closely with the Product Owner to co-construct the organisation and the product, but also to challenge the concept with the founders.

September 2018 – March 2020 : Develop

At the end of the incubation period, we helped to implement a strategy for acquiring new users (communication and facilitation campaign) and developing the territorial network (sourcing partner buildings). We also helped to build the product development trajectory in an agile manner.

Since March 2020 : Rotate

By imposing strict confinement and teleworking throughout the group, the health crisis could have spelled the end of this application, the essence of which was to allow employees to work from anywhere, but always from BNP Paribas sites. The team of founders renewed their confidence to help them rethink the application in this new context and make it a useful application for employees to return to the site. Thus, today, Be Nomad makes it possible to reserve a flex office workstation, whether on its initial site of attachment or on any other site. The situation has also opened up new external horizons for Be Nomad, which will be marketed as a white label beyond the BNP Paribas group.

Technology, agility and change management for new ways of working

Our support was aimed at helping the founders prove the concept to create and create Be Nomad within the BNP Paribas group. Our consultants worked alongside Be Nomad's teams on 6 projects:

Application and Back Office: develop a reliable and user-friendly application in test & learn while respecting the Group's IS constraints.
Human resources: define the framework for using Be Nomad and include it in the Group HR policy.
Real estate: develop the network of buildings participating in the Be Nomad mechanism, integrate the application in the group's real estate master plan and meet the needs of each entity/company.
Communication: define the brand image of Be Nomad and the communication strategy that surrounds it in accordance with Group Communication (as part of the deployment at BNP Paribas) then build the external communication strategy (as part of the marketing of the application).
Growth Hacking (internal and external): build a strategy to grow, retain and sustain the user community by promoting the benefits of nomadism.
CSR: anchor the application in the Group's CSR strategy.
Monitoring: help to position the application, particularly in relation to external competitors thanks to different benchmarks

The situation resulting from containment has prompted a change in our support to, in addition, help the founders rethink the application and anchor it in this new situation of returning to the office with strong sanitary constraints.

From recommendations to action

Our teams supported Be Nomad from the definition of recommendations to their implementation:

Setting up and steering an agile project team of six people: front and back developers, UX/UI designer, Strategic Planner, SwissKnife, Growth Hacker.
Definition and implementation of a cross-functional project organisation: implementation of project comitology, definition of roles between the project team, business mentors and advisors/experts from all entities and all business lines (real estate, HR, IT, security, legal).
Management of application development: facilitation of agile rituals, drafting of user stories and administration of project development management tools (JIRA), continuous management of backlog, management of production deployments in coordination with a DevOps team, management of relations with IT/Core Team support.
Framing and steering the brand and communication strategy, working with the BNP Paribas Cardif Design Studio and monitoring deliverables.
Definition of the framework for using the service in collaboration with Group Human Resources (Digital Working Team) by involving the HR managers of the different entities and the social partners while responding to the uses and mobility needs specific to each business line.
Development of the network of participating buildings, reflection on the integration of Be Nomad in the Group's Flex Office deployment, adjustment of the strategy for integration into the Group's property master plan.
Implementation of a Growth Hacking plan (development, acquisition, activation and retention of users).
Define and deploy a differentiated awareness and training plan in order to anticipate and support the provision of the solution to employees and their local managers taking into account the practices and tools specific to each business entity.
Management of user support, customer service and user reporting.
Running workshops (communication, human resources, CSR strategy, pooling strategy).
Construction of the commercial pitch and landing page in order to reorient the product presentation while retaining the project's DNA.

Be Nomad, a success at BNP Paribas in France, internationally, and soon in new companies !

In 2018, the notion of nomadism was still marginal and poorly understood. In 2021, it has become, if not a standard, at least an expectation of employees and a lever for attracting and retaining talent. Talan Consulting's teams have been present alongside the founders of Be Nomad since the start of the project and have thus helped to breathe new life into new working methods in a large French group.

Following its incubation, the project was adopted by the general management of BNP Paribas Cardif with a view to acculturating its employees to nomadism. Our teams have helped overcome constraints (HR, IT, etc.) the group to provide a stable application popular with 5,000 employees registered on the platform (in one and a half years).

In addition, following the success of Be Nomad within the Group, nomadism has been generalised and now serves the CSR, HR and real estate master plan ambitions.

Be Nomad is also an export success within the BNP Paribas group in Spain, where one entity has adopted the solution.

"Very easy to use, obvious utility, real happiness and an example in the group. ”