60 companies in one starling flight...

Réseau DEF is a French heritage network specialising in fire safety. It includes 65 companies that share different areas of expertise and territories (in France and abroad). They work in collaboration, depending on the project, without ever competing with each other. Philippe Lécuyer uses the metaphor of the flight of starlings, whose thousands of individuals move together without any collisions, thanks to a double level of communication, one between each bird and its close neighbours, the other at the level of the whole group. In the beginning, this model of organisation surprised customers compared with the way Réseau DEF's major competitors, such as Siemens and Honeywell, operated. Nevertheless, the success of symbolic projects such as the Hinkley Point nuclear power station and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris shows that Réseau DEF, with its 2,500 employees, has found its place among the greats.