Winner of the 2018 Félix Prize in the Entrepreneur category, awarded Monday evening by the associations of CentraleSupelec, Philippe Benquet, the president of Acorus, is rewarded for having succeeded in proving that it is possible to obtain, in the traditional building sector , the same growth curve as a company in the new economy.
Philippe Benquet has the ideal profile of the winner of the Félix Prize 2018, in the Entrepreneur category, awarded Monday evening by the associations of CentraleSupelec. A graduate of Centrale Paris (1993) and Sciences Po (1994), he built the first fourteen years of his career within the Veolia and Elis groups, before attempting the entrepreneurial adventure. His motivation: " Mreally implement a different managerial approach, based on autonomy and support, and prove its effectiveness », He explains. To demonstrate this, in 2010 he acquired Acorus, a small company then specialized in renovation on behalf of social landlords in Ile-de-France. Its entrepreneurial daring will transform it into a model of national success, with a growth curve more characteristic of the new economy than of a traditional sector such as construction.
Mini-business network
In eight years, Acorus has seen its workforce increase tenfold from 80 to 880 employees and its turnover soar from 24 to 140 million euros in 2018, with reference customers such as Aéroports de Paris, Disney or AXA. He succeeded by betting on job creation in an area where subcontracting is more the norm, and by seizing acquisition opportunities: Peintisol in 2015 and Air Technology in 2017. He is also the precursor of “lean”. In construction, an approach aimed at identifying and eliminating sources of waste.
But the president of Acorus has not given the full measure of his ambitions, mirroring 350 million turnover and 1.800 employees within three years. " Now that we have a network of 100 autonomous mini-companies, which collaborate through an internal social network, and the bosses to steer them, we are better armed in terms of human resources and a digital platform to carry out acquisitions in a sector which remains very fragmented."
Source: Les Echos, 22/01/2019, by Chantal Houzelle
