AUDRIC
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
AT DECATHLON | NABAIJI

Meet Audric, technical director at DECATHLON | NABAIJI.
Learn about how his job is a key role that creates synergy between the various engineers.

I am the Technical Director of NABAIJI, I lead the team of Product Engineers (12 people) and Field Test Engineers (2 people). These engineers design and develop NABAIJI products and prepare them for large-scale manufacturing. My role is to support my team members in their skills acquisition (know-how) and in their personal development (behaviour). My secondary role is to draw up the strategy in terms of our know-how as a brand that designs its own products. As such, there is a whole aspect of project management with the aim of remaining aligned with NABAIJI's overall framework.

The main consequence would be that technical know-how would decrease as well as all the precision and the definition of our specifications. The end result is simple: product excellence would be impacted. The second consequence would be that there would no longer be a strategy created and drawn up in what we call the overall "framework". Broadly speaking, the main actions of the role of Technical Director come mainly in the medium and long term. If this role were to disappear, the teams would not have a shared vision, since they are more in touch with the operational side and less involved in strategy.

During all phases, however in a less hands-on and operational capacity than Product Engineers for example. The key stages are at the beginning and at the end of product development. The first is project approval. In some ways, this is the operational launch of the project because that is when we assign the necessary resources. It's sort of the green light. Then comes an important stage of setting out each milestone of the project. Another important step is the prototype review. After developing the product, we have a milestone that allows us to see if everything is approved in the technical sense.

The first performance indicator has a human focus. It is linked to employee fulfilment and happiness at work.

The second relates to innovation. Every year, there is an event at DECATHLON called "Reveal Innovation". We have set ourselves the goal of presenting a new project each year at this event. This pushes us to constantly innovate and always have a new product ready to be presented.

Lastly, I am motivated by eco-design. This year (2022) for example, we have set ourselves a target of having 20% of our turnover from eco-designed products.

Firstly with the teams of Engineers. I am also in direct contact with the "Industrial Process" division, i.e., our teams in charge of the industrial transformation processes of our components. I also interact a lot with the Design teams who are involved at several points during product design. Lastly, I am in direct contact with the User Leaders, to ensure that the design strategies meet their needs.

I like being able to build a project with a team, leading a project, having responsibilities and feeling like my decisions have an impact on economic performance, on performance in terms of innovation and eco-design and also on the products that we offer in store. What I love above all is doing this as part of a team project! I'd also like to add that I like developing sports products and ensuring that our users can fully enjoy the pleasures of sport.