Becoming a digital company: when a strategic challenge hides another one

At Michelin, AI is at the core of R&D and industrial processes, but that does not mean, according to Yves Caseau, that the century-old company has become a digital company. Digital transformation implies a series of transformations, mainly along two axes: from the customer to the code, and from the code to the customer. Furthermore, as AI is not an independent technology, but a form of software systems, it is strategic for a long-established company to raise its software development practices to the same level as the best, such as GAFAM and successful start-ups. This represents a considerable organisational, technical and managerial challenge. It is equally essential to have a good understanding of software ecosystems, so that you can make the best decisions about what to buy, rent or develop yourself, in a world where the leaders are investing billions in R&D and where the world's best talents are expressing themselves through open source.