"For our customers and partners, working with Docoon means working with people who take their job seriously, but who do it with passion because they enjoy working together."
Arnaud LEJEUNE is Chief Executive Officer/Director of Operations at Docoon, the new entity formed from the Odyssey Messaging Group and its brands DPii Télécom & Services and Docoon. He joined Odyssey Messaging in 2012 as a co-partner, initially to develop the group's international business. Meet a strong personality who is passionate about his job and a privileged witness to the evolution of a group that is establishing itself as a major publisher of digital trust and dematerialization solutions in France.
Hello Arnaud LEJEUNE, could you start by telling us about your career within the group?
Arnaud LEJEUNE: I joined Odyssey Messaging in December 2011. The company had just set up a subsidiary in Japan and was looking to acquire a technology partner in the United States. I had some capital and extensive experience in international management and project management. I partnered with the company's founder, Laurent MEZRAHI, to help him launch the Japanese subsidiary and raise funds to acquire the American company, whose accounts we turned around to make it profitable.
In just a few years, we built a business that created value, but which we did not consider sufficiently profitable. We therefore undertook a strategic realignment to refocus on the French market, where we saw better prospects for growth. This involved expanding our offering. Coming from the messaging sector, Odyssey acquired DPii Télécom & Services to position itself in the rapidly growing and more profitable dematerialization market.
Very well, but when a company grows, does that require other skills?
A.L.: Indeed . That's where experience working with SMEs, large corporations, and mid-sized companies comes in handy. When you grow, you need to be better organized. I drew on my experience in structuring to lead and manage teams across multiple sites and countries. And that's what I continue to do on a daily basis today. In the partnership we have formed with Laurent Mezrahi (President and CEO of Docoon), he oversees strategy and I oversee operations.
Are you two kind of complementary?
A.L.: In our line of work, it's important to make decisions quickly and with hindsight. Put like that, it may seem contradictory. Let me explain: you have to decide quickly because even long-term projects are based on a series of rapid executions. One way to meet this challenge is to have two different perspectives on the same situation and the ability to compare these opinions in real time. I am a privileged observer of the business, and I report operational information to Laurent Mezrahi, who acts as a mirror. Simply expressing and reporting on what is happening on a daily basis often invalidates or confirms decisions. Laurent MEZRAHI's position also gives him an overview of the business with hindsight: this happy complementarity feeds into decision-making and the actions that result from it.
In terms of operations, how do you see your role?
A.L.: A CEO works on several timeframes. Laurent Mezrahi and I agree on a vision, knowing where we want the company to go and where it will be in the medium and longer term. Then, with the help of the department heads, I execute an operational plan that allows us to achieve our objectives with the resources set out in the annual budget. The budget simply translates into financial terms the actions we are going to invest in and the revenue we will need to generate to make those investments. It's a roadmap, and I make sure we follow it, for example by regularly reviewing ongoing projects and commercial and marketing developments with the teams. We are a "digital factory," so I make sure that projects are delivered to customers on time. More broadly, I ensure that operations run smoothly, that our teams have the means to work comfortably, and that we maintain high-quality relationships with our customers.
More broadly, how do you view your role as Chief Executive Officer?
A.L: The role of CEO is similar to that of an orchestra conductor. Conductors often have a background as instrumentalists. In my case, I started out as an engineer and retained a taste and desire to understand "how things work ," to understand the inner workings of each profession, so that ultimately everything fits together and runs smoothly.
Like a conductor, I work with a score because I like to have a quantified understanding of things, with figures that are concise, representative, and consistent. During a concert, the conductor uses his ear to "feel" whether the ensemble is generating the expected harmony and emotion. I believe you need to have this instinctive perception to sense whether the mechanics are working smoothly. The figures are there to confirm or refute my impression. It is precisely this relationship between my "on-the-ground" impression and the reality of the figures that fascinates me! For example, you may have a positive feeling about the work produced by the teams, but the figures may contradict this impression. Why? What is the reason for this? It's my job to analyze and understand what's wrong with different parameters.
In your opinion, what is the essence of Docoon?
A.L.: For me, Docoon is all about seriousness and joy. We are very rigorous because our business is based on digital trust: we "transport" strategic and sensitive information on behalf of our clients. We are therefore meticulous in our compliance with standards and procedures, and attentive to detail and the quality of our services. But that doesn't stop our teams from working in a cheerful atmosphere.
Every day, I feel a lot of joy because the women and men I am lucky enough to work with are all very committed to what they do, but with a good dose of good humor and even self-deprecation. In short, we are very serious without taking ourselves too seriously!
As Chief Operating Officer, my pleasure comes from seeing and feeling the energy on the trading floor, hearing the support team assisting customers, salespeople presenting the company or training a reseller, and developers discussing a project. For our customers and partners, working with Docoon means working with people who take their job seriously, but who do so with passion because they enjoy working together. Beyond the technical aspects of our business, I firmly believe that economic efficiency is a consequence of a very good quality of life at work.
What achievement are you most proud of?
A.L.: Docoon is the product of several stories. I've had the opportunity to create, buy, and sell subsidiaries abroad, in Japan, the United States, and Canada, to raise funds, and to lead mergers. Each time, you have to imagine a story, tell it to convince internal and external stakeholders, and then bring it to life. And things don't always work out as planned!
Looking back on my 10 years with the company, my greatest source of pride is seeing how, as time goes by, the stories we dream up and imagine for the company are becoming reality! The projects we are building are putting us on a growth trajectory, with promising prospects in digitization.
Secondly, it's no small thing that all players in the dematerialization market and those working on electronic invoicing reform recognize Docoon as an undisputed expert in the field. What I mean by that is that our partners see us as a player who understands the challenges of this reform and provides them with what they need. For our end customers, our products and services are reliable—dematerialization and messaging—and we know how to solve their problems while protecting their interests, always with a smile! Finally, financiers and investors tell us that our figures are clear, accurate, and easy to read, and that we have a level of information about the company and its market that is above average for SMEs.
What is Docoon's position on the electronic invoicing reform?
A.L.: Our message to the market is clear: we will be a Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP) as part of the electronic invoicing reform. We are affirming this position because we have all the technological "building blocks" to achieve the dematerialization of invoices. And we are already very relevant in this area today, without waiting for the reform... It is important to realize that the market is about to experience a "tsunami." Today, we process between 1 and 2 million documents in terms of dematerialization every month; the market is estimated at 3 billion invoices per year in France...
We will approach the market in line with our core principles: we will make our expertise available to our partners —publishers, integrators, and accountants—who may themselves be PDPs by "consuming" our white-label services. We are open to making one or two strategic acquisitions, always with a view to expanding our solutions to facilitate the transition for the end customer by ensuring that they can access data feeds in the simplest way possible.
A rich program that we will carry out with enthusiasm!
