GDF SUEZ Decentralizing to Boost Efficiency

GDF SUEZ has decided to launch an ambitious enterprise project to implement its business strategy more quickly and meet the demands of a rapidly changing energy environment, the company said yesterday in a press release.

This plan, by rooting GDF SUEZ more firmly in its local areas and thus ever closer to its clients, will create an even more efficient Group, one that is more entrepreneurial and innovative and, at the same time, more responsive, the company explained.

The Group will also serve as a showcase for the most modern technologies, open to dialogue with its clients and stakeholders.

GDF SUEZ said that the enterprise project will be focused on three objectives: accelerating the Group’s growth, making GDF SUEZ more than ever a Group by and for people, making the enterprise project one of which its employees will be the architects and the ambassadors.

It will be based on the creation of twenty-four operational entities (Business Units – BU) according to a region-centered approach within a single country or a group of countries.

More decentralized, these entities will shorten response times.

• The following ten geographical BUs will be formed (North America; Latin America; Brazil; Africa; China; Asia-Pacific; Southern Asia/Middle East; Benelux; Northern, Central and Southern Europe; and the United Kingdom). They will have responsibility, under a single authority, for controlling all the Group’s business lines in the area in question.
• France, given its size and the presence of regulated entities, will be handled in a special way. It will include eight entities, four of which will specialize in gas infrastructure (transport, distribution, terminals, and storage) and whose scope will remain unchanged, and four entities related to BtoB, BtoC, networks, and renewables.
• The new organisation will not jeopardize the Thermal Generation Europe BU (electricity production from thermal power plants).
• Five global steering entities, in light of the global scope of their activities, will complement the operational entities: E&P; LNG; EMT; Tractebel Engineering; and GTT.

In addition to this geographical approach, the planned organisation will study the constitution of five strong business lines tasked with operating the Group’s entities as a network and implementing its overall strategy within their spheres of influences: gas chain; centralized production of renewable and thermal electricity; decentralized solutions for cities and regions; solutions for businesses; and solutions for residents and professionals.

The functional lines will be directed by a single corporate body, (“NewCorp”), resulting from merging part of the Branch Corporate with the Group Corporate. NewCorp will be the guarantor of the Group’s cohesion, strategic direction, image and reputation.

The new organisation is scheduled to become effective from the start of 2016.

Image: GDF SUEZ