Ben Thuriaux-Aleman
Partner
Head, Technology, Innovation & Digitalization Competence Center, Energy Practice
Ben delivers strategic change and process improvement to improve industry technology and innovation management.
Education
Rotterdam School of Management
Chicago Booth School of Business
MBA (Dean’s Honor List)
Open University
Postgraduate Certification in Project Management (Distinction)
Science Policy Research Unit
MSc in Science and Technology Policy
Manchester University
BSc Physics
Past Experience
Technopolis Group
Senior Consultant
Military Intelligence, Joint Chiefs of Staff, French Army
2nd Lieutenant, Desk Officer
Ben is a Partner at Arthur D. Little in the London office and leads the Technology and Innovation Management Practice and Growth Strategy. He is also affiliated with Energy Practice’s Competence Centre in Technology & Innovation.
His work focuses on:
- Strategy, technology and innovation management diagnostic and adapting innovation management best practices
- Growth Strategy
- National Innovation Systems, University and Education Strategy, Entrepreneurship Education and Innovation Hubs
- Development of innovation strategy and technology roadmaps
- Market intelligence and transaction support
Ben led Arthur D. Little’s most recent Innovation Excellence Benchmarking Study and our R&D management best practice study; he has also co-authored a number of ADL reports and viewpoints on a range of different innovation-related topics. He is passionate about the use of evidence and statistics in supporting decision-making.
Before joining Arthur D. Little, he worked at Technopolis Group on the evaluation of R&D programs and institutions and Innovation Policy for the EU and OECD.
He holds triple British, French, and Belgian Nationality. Ben trained as a Military Intelligence Officer in the French Army and holds a half blue for Judo from Sussex University.
HEI-led innovation hubs’ contribution to socioeconomic development
In an era of rapid technological evolution and increased global challenges, higher education institutions (HEIs) emerge as catalysts for development. This Viewpoint delves into the rising global interest in innovation hubs and discusses how HEI-led hubs can bolster national competitiveness and support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Vision 2030 goals. After identifying untapped opportunities for such hubs to advance KSA’s innovation positioning, we articulate a number of key success factors for this to be realized.
The future of higher education, Part I
From good to great: Enhancing innovation performance through effective management processes
Time to renew your pilot’s license?
Closing the innovation gaps between business units
Why is this, and what can companies do to improve the situation? Based on new research, this article explores the reasons for failure to share best innovation practices between business units and sets out strategic approach companies can take.
About the research
Having run for over 20 years, ADL’s Global Innovation Excellence Benchmark is an anonymous self-assessment best practice database, containing responses from over 500 companies to a series of detailed questions on innovation excellence. It measures two dimensions:
Technology foresight: anticipating future impact
THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT
What is technology foresight?
The Future of Innovation Districts
The way in which organizations innovate, and places where they are based to do this, have changed profoundly over the last decade due to two overall trends – convergence and disruption. Companies have moved away from closed innovation models to more open approaches in which organizations and places work in collaborative ecosystems and networks, forming “uncommon partnerships” between previously unrelated industries.
Innovation management
Many organizations have created significant business benefit by decentralizing R&D and innovation functions, thus improving the contribution of innovation to business unit performance. However, this often creates a conflict of ownership, as the alignment of R&D activities with corporate strategy then needs to be dealt with at group level. Frequently, the responsibility for alignment between corporate strategy and business unit innovation and R&D lands with the CTO, who needs the right processes and tools to achieve this.
Innovation across business units
Why is innovation best practice not replicated across business units in the same organization?
The National Innovation Ecosystem
Innovation is key in driving social and economic development and bridging the wealth gap between emerging and developed countries. Over the last 50 years, only a few countries, such as South Korea and Singapore, have succeeded in unlocking the full benefits of nation-wide innovation. Instrumental to their success is a systematic approach tackling innovation in a holistic manner that captures policy, governance, innovation engines and innovation enablers to shape their innovation ecosystem and bridge systemic and market gaps.
Innovation purpose
Innovation is central to success for businesses today, yet many large, asset-heavy companies with decentralized business units struggle to combine R&D agility with common, clearly communicable corporate strategies. This article, based on experience at a large global energy company, explains how a purpose-driven approach to R&D can deliver innovation agility across the organization.
Driving transformation in research & technology organizations
Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) are under growing pressure to stay abreast of rapidly evolving business or national science and technology priorities and to demonstrate greater impact. They therefore undergo continual strategic and operational change to adapt, but in some cases, transformation programs can underperform. Often this is because there is no real incentive to behave differently due to problems with how performance is measured and reported, and how incentives are created and aligned.
Oil, Gas & Other Natural Resources, Telecommunications, Information technology, Media & Electronics (TIME)
E&P cost reduction through technology assessment
Cost reductions achieved by adopting new oilfield technologies are critical to improve the resilience of Exploration and Production margins, especially for subsea assets. However, new cost-effective technologies can only be deployed successfully with sustained and targeted R&D efforts. In this viewpoint, Arthur D.
Using agile approaches for breakthrough product innovation
Companies expect their share of revenue from breakthrough, as opposed to incremental, innovation to double over the next five years, yet 88% of business leaders are dissatisfied with their current performances in this area. How can they improve? This article looks at how adopting agile alongside existing methods in a complementary way across their innovation portfolios allows organizations to successfully deliver the breakthrough products they are aiming for.
The future of higher education
The global Higher Education (HE) market is transforming rapidly, with nine major trends changing the educational landscape over the next 15 years and posing challenges for universities that wish to remain competitive.
The NOC Technology & Innovation Management Challenge
National Oil Companies (NOCs) are spending more and more on R&D. But this has not yet had much of an impact. With the oil price currently well below the break-even point of their nations’ budgets, they are still behind Independent Oil Companies (IOCs) in terms of R&D effectiveness. IOCs have been shown to adjust faster to a new baseline price. Arthur D.
Finding your balance: Insights into world class portfolio management
In the current era of technological disruption and global competition, it is more important than ever to have a clear grip on how the full intent of corporate strategy is manifested in the R&D portfolio. Allocating resources in line with that strategy achieves better results - yet all too often, companies rely on stage gate controls at individual project or program levels. This is not sufficient to achieve the dynamic R&D portfolio management and resource allocation that global corporations need to stay ahead.
Systematizing Breakthrough Innovation
It is increasingly important for companies to be able to deliver a pipeline of Breakthrough (or Radical) Innovations in order to respond to emerging competition, disruptions to core business, and increasing customer power. For example, in five years’ time, companies in our survey expect the revenue contribution of Breakthrough Innovations to be double the current levels.
Insight into resource & competence management
The ever increasing rate of technology development and the combination of new disciplines places increasing demands on competence management in R&D and, if companies fail to develop or target the wrong areas, the consequences are greater and it’s harder to recover in time. One of the greatest inefficiencies in R&D is bottlenecks and delays in getting products to market, often due to resource constraints, hits companies hard.
Insights into world class idea enrichment
We are entering an era that will demand unheralded levels of creativity as companies constantly innovate and reinvent themselves to succeed in the search for growth and margins. This places increasing pressure on companies to generate a steady stream of high quality ideas that can eventually deliver top and bottom line growth. This viewpoint looks best practices in developing, nurturing, and enriching ideas. Best practices identified include: time-limited ideation challenges for key strategic issues and a dedicated process to enrich and select winning ideas.
The Projects, Technology & Procurement Organization
The integration of Project management, Technology and Procurement functions into an integrated unit can improve performance by achieving better control, project cost reduction and the opportunity to achieve performance leadership through technology.
Opportunities and challenges for Global Deepwater Players
The pace of deepwater drilling has increased by 40 % over the last three years. While technology is a key enabler for deepwater development, players still face many critical challenges and decisions which require close attention if projects are to be delivered successfully. In this article the authors take a closer look at the global rise in deepwater activities and discuss how to address the challenges this brings.
Assessing innovation and R&D capabilities across multi-center organizations
Over the last decades most global companies have evolved to organize their innovation efforts through an “open innovation” model with individual research centers. Globalization and mergers & acquisitions have changed these networks, making them more complex to manage successfully. A robust capability assessment is the starting point for capturing synergies, fostering cross-center collaboration and steering critical make-or-buy and resource allocation decisions in the right direction. This article shows how this can be done.
Deepwater Developments
Technology is a key enabler for deep-water development but players still face a myriad of critical challenges and decisions which require close attention for successful delivery.
Ben is a Partner at Arthur D. Little in the London office and leads the Technology and Innovation Management Practice and Growth Strategy. He is also affiliated with Energy Practice’s Competence Centre in Technology & Innovation.
His work focuses on:
- Strategy, technology and innovation management diagnostic and adapting innovation management best practices
- Growth Strategy
- National Innovation Systems, University and Education Strategy, Entrepreneurship Education and Innovation Hubs
- Development of innovation strategy and technology roadmaps
- Market intelligence and transaction support
Ben led Arthur D. Little’s most recent Innovation Excellence Benchmarking Study and our R&D management best practice study; he has also co-authored a number of ADL reports and viewpoints on a range of different innovation-related topics. He is passionate about the use of evidence and statistics in supporting decision-making.
Before joining Arthur D. Little, he worked at Technopolis Group on the evaluation of R&D programs and institutions and Innovation Policy for the EU and OECD.
He holds triple British, French, and Belgian Nationality. Ben trained as a Military Intelligence Officer in the French Army and holds a half blue for Judo from Sussex University.
HEI-led innovation hubs’ contribution to socioeconomic development
In an era of rapid technological evolution and increased global challenges, higher education institutions (HEIs) emerge as catalysts for development. This Viewpoint delves into the rising global interest in innovation hubs and discusses how HEI-led hubs can bolster national competitiveness and support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Vision 2030 goals. After identifying untapped opportunities for such hubs to advance KSA’s innovation positioning, we articulate a number of key success factors for this to be realized.
The future of higher education, Part I
From good to great: Enhancing innovation performance through effective management processes
Time to renew your pilot’s license?
Closing the innovation gaps between business units
Why is this, and what can companies do to improve the situation? Based on new research, this article explores the reasons for failure to share best innovation practices between business units and sets out strategic approach companies can take.
About the research
Having run for over 20 years, ADL’s Global Innovation Excellence Benchmark is an anonymous self-assessment best practice database, containing responses from over 500 companies to a series of detailed questions on innovation excellence. It measures two dimensions:
Technology foresight: anticipating future impact
THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT
What is technology foresight?
The Future of Innovation Districts
The way in which organizations innovate, and places where they are based to do this, have changed profoundly over the last decade due to two overall trends – convergence and disruption. Companies have moved away from closed innovation models to more open approaches in which organizations and places work in collaborative ecosystems and networks, forming “uncommon partnerships” between previously unrelated industries.
Innovation management
Many organizations have created significant business benefit by decentralizing R&D and innovation functions, thus improving the contribution of innovation to business unit performance. However, this often creates a conflict of ownership, as the alignment of R&D activities with corporate strategy then needs to be dealt with at group level. Frequently, the responsibility for alignment between corporate strategy and business unit innovation and R&D lands with the CTO, who needs the right processes and tools to achieve this.
Innovation across business units
Why is innovation best practice not replicated across business units in the same organization?
The National Innovation Ecosystem
Innovation is key in driving social and economic development and bridging the wealth gap between emerging and developed countries. Over the last 50 years, only a few countries, such as South Korea and Singapore, have succeeded in unlocking the full benefits of nation-wide innovation. Instrumental to their success is a systematic approach tackling innovation in a holistic manner that captures policy, governance, innovation engines and innovation enablers to shape their innovation ecosystem and bridge systemic and market gaps.
Innovation purpose
Innovation is central to success for businesses today, yet many large, asset-heavy companies with decentralized business units struggle to combine R&D agility with common, clearly communicable corporate strategies. This article, based on experience at a large global energy company, explains how a purpose-driven approach to R&D can deliver innovation agility across the organization.
Driving transformation in research & technology organizations
Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) are under growing pressure to stay abreast of rapidly evolving business or national science and technology priorities and to demonstrate greater impact. They therefore undergo continual strategic and operational change to adapt, but in some cases, transformation programs can underperform. Often this is because there is no real incentive to behave differently due to problems with how performance is measured and reported, and how incentives are created and aligned.
Oil, Gas & Other Natural Resources, Telecommunications, Information technology, Media & Electronics (TIME)
E&P cost reduction through technology assessment
Cost reductions achieved by adopting new oilfield technologies are critical to improve the resilience of Exploration and Production margins, especially for subsea assets. However, new cost-effective technologies can only be deployed successfully with sustained and targeted R&D efforts. In this viewpoint, Arthur D.
Using agile approaches for breakthrough product innovation
Companies expect their share of revenue from breakthrough, as opposed to incremental, innovation to double over the next five years, yet 88% of business leaders are dissatisfied with their current performances in this area. How can they improve? This article looks at how adopting agile alongside existing methods in a complementary way across their innovation portfolios allows organizations to successfully deliver the breakthrough products they are aiming for.
The future of higher education
The global Higher Education (HE) market is transforming rapidly, with nine major trends changing the educational landscape over the next 15 years and posing challenges for universities that wish to remain competitive.
The NOC Technology & Innovation Management Challenge
National Oil Companies (NOCs) are spending more and more on R&D. But this has not yet had much of an impact. With the oil price currently well below the break-even point of their nations’ budgets, they are still behind Independent Oil Companies (IOCs) in terms of R&D effectiveness. IOCs have been shown to adjust faster to a new baseline price. Arthur D.
Finding your balance: Insights into world class portfolio management
In the current era of technological disruption and global competition, it is more important than ever to have a clear grip on how the full intent of corporate strategy is manifested in the R&D portfolio. Allocating resources in line with that strategy achieves better results - yet all too often, companies rely on stage gate controls at individual project or program levels. This is not sufficient to achieve the dynamic R&D portfolio management and resource allocation that global corporations need to stay ahead.
Systematizing Breakthrough Innovation
It is increasingly important for companies to be able to deliver a pipeline of Breakthrough (or Radical) Innovations in order to respond to emerging competition, disruptions to core business, and increasing customer power. For example, in five years’ time, companies in our survey expect the revenue contribution of Breakthrough Innovations to be double the current levels.
Insight into resource & competence management
The ever increasing rate of technology development and the combination of new disciplines places increasing demands on competence management in R&D and, if companies fail to develop or target the wrong areas, the consequences are greater and it’s harder to recover in time. One of the greatest inefficiencies in R&D is bottlenecks and delays in getting products to market, often due to resource constraints, hits companies hard.
Insights into world class idea enrichment
We are entering an era that will demand unheralded levels of creativity as companies constantly innovate and reinvent themselves to succeed in the search for growth and margins. This places increasing pressure on companies to generate a steady stream of high quality ideas that can eventually deliver top and bottom line growth. This viewpoint looks best practices in developing, nurturing, and enriching ideas. Best practices identified include: time-limited ideation challenges for key strategic issues and a dedicated process to enrich and select winning ideas.
The Projects, Technology & Procurement Organization
The integration of Project management, Technology and Procurement functions into an integrated unit can improve performance by achieving better control, project cost reduction and the opportunity to achieve performance leadership through technology.
Opportunities and challenges for Global Deepwater Players
The pace of deepwater drilling has increased by 40 % over the last three years. While technology is a key enabler for deepwater development, players still face many critical challenges and decisions which require close attention if projects are to be delivered successfully. In this article the authors take a closer look at the global rise in deepwater activities and discuss how to address the challenges this brings.
Assessing innovation and R&D capabilities across multi-center organizations
Over the last decades most global companies have evolved to organize their innovation efforts through an “open innovation” model with individual research centers. Globalization and mergers & acquisitions have changed these networks, making them more complex to manage successfully. A robust capability assessment is the starting point for capturing synergies, fostering cross-center collaboration and steering critical make-or-buy and resource allocation decisions in the right direction. This article shows how this can be done.
Deepwater Developments
Technology is a key enabler for deep-water development but players still face a myriad of critical challenges and decisions which require close attention for successful delivery.
More About Ben
- Rotterdam School of Management
- Chicago Booth School of BusinessMBA (Dean’s Honor List)
- Open UniversityPostgraduate Certification in Project Management (Distinction)
- Science Policy Research UnitMSc in Science and Technology Policy
- Manchester UniversityBSc Physics
- Technopolis GroupSenior Consultant
- Military Intelligence, Joint Chiefs of Staff, French Army2nd Lieutenant, Desk Officer