The Euro50 Q&A: Nicolas Bry, senior vice-president, Orange Innovation Group

Nicolas Bry has this year overseen the rollout of Orange’s Blended TV offering, designed to enable subscribers and service providers to benefit from the social buzz around TV shows and content. Orange has been at the forefront of developing innovative mew models based on social TV. 
Age 47

Education Master degrees from engineering school Supélec and from HEC Business School.

Previous positions Chief product officer at Club-Internet (Deutsche Telekom Group); senior marketing manager at Logica Consulting; strategic marketing manager at SFR; manager at Braxton Consulting

Life outside work A true passion: researching and blogging about innovation at ‘rapid innovation’ (nbry.wordpress.com); traveling with my family, home exchanges, running and fitness.

Key achievements of 2012 Designing and rolling out Orange social buzz component, ‘Blended TV’, across six Orange consumer-facing applications, and building a new rapid innovation approach, ‘Modular Design’, based on this empirical experience.

Most significant industry developments In term of consumer usage, 2012 has notably seen the rise of social TV, Smart TV, and multiscreen experiences.

Key challenges for 2013 Many challenges are shaping the future of TV: linear viewing versus on-demand, social and personalised EPG, social TV and second screen interactivity, TV everywhere and multiscreen roaming across devices and around places, Smart TV and TV apps ecosystems, TV commerce, brand strategy toward TV spot investment, cutting the cord, OTT offerings and SVOD catalogues versus triple-play bundles, the unbundling of TV channels.

Goals for next year My goal in 2013 is to put on tracks a creative, compelling and seamless TV everywhere experience for the consumer, bridging the gap between nomadism and multiscreen at home, leveraging on Orange specific technological assets such as LTE, Cloud TV, NFC.

Most admired industry personality Gary Hamel for the modern and dynamic spirit of innovation he instills in Managing Innovation and Reinventing Management.

Favourite current TV show Mad Men because the last season was gripping, elegant, and meaningful.