With tech companies such as Meta once again postponing workers’ return to the office, it is clear that remote work will be a big part of our world in 2022 and beyond. This makes “future of work” a hot topic among investors, but that means different things to different people.
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To get a better understanding of what kind of opportunities “future of work” encompasses from an investor perspective, The Exchange called on Eric Boustouller, who joined French multi-stage VC firm C4 Ventures last fall.
An industry veteran whose former roles include presiding over Microsoft in Western Europe and being CEO of Solocal, Boustouller also has a track record as an angel investor, with a sweet spot for B2B SaaS.
As one of C4 Ventures’ four partners alongside its founder, ex-Apple exec Pascal Cagni, Boustouller is now part of a firm whose thesis revolves around the following key verticals: smart hardware, future of commerce, digital media and future of work. It is the last that we discussed at length with him. What follows is a selection of topics from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
‘Future of work’ is not entirely new
Eric Boustouller: Some 15 years ago, at Microsoft, we were talking about “the new world of work.” It has now become “the future of work.”
You may remember how a few years ago, then-CEO Steve Ballmer was calling out the so-called “consumerization of IT.” What was it all about? It was just that at the time, it became clear, and it’s even more obvious now, that people at work and consumers want the same tools at home and in the office. That was a disruption: It was no longer the IT department that was driving the show anymore, but the users themselves.
I think it’s important to mention that the catalyst for the future of work is definitely the pandemic. The pandemic has been such a huge accelerator, it is even hard to find the right terminology.
[To give a sense of the acceleration’s pace, Boustouller quoted Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella saying that “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”]
On the multiple impacts of hybrid working
Eric Boustouller: The implications of hybrid working are pervasive, not just for people-related stuff but also for other challenges within the organization.
When you look at the future of work, I would look at different aspects of it. One, people. […] Second, IT – because remote work drives lots of challenges when it comes to deployment. Third, infrastructure.
Data key to HR needs
Eric Boustouller: When it comes to people, there are several needs, including automation, data and communications. All of these things are impacting the way people work, and how they can [do so] in a very comfortable, convenient, effective and productive way.
Every dimension of HR is impacted: global hiring; onboarding new employees, temporary workers and freelancers; managing performance; motivating; retaining; training; employee well-being. … All these things require new solutions and new platforms.
Data is also key to all that. From global hiring to performance management, data is absolutely essential to make the right decision. Analytics and the ability to do some predictions using artificial intelligence is also very important, at least to us.
[Boustouller mentioned one of the investments C4 Ventures made in employee engagement startup Centrical. He noted that the firm “will continue investing in this area” – but only in tech platforms. “We believe that tech scales and differentiates,” he explained.]
Reimagining people-related categories
Boustouller said that there are several people-related categories that need to be reinvented, including:
- Project management
- Search for information within the enterprise
- Events
- Real estate
On factory work
Eric Boustouller: If you consider technicians, engineers within factories, different plants and so forth – we never talk about that when it comes to future of work, but I think there is a big change there as well. It may be a little bit slower than what we see for knowledge workers yet, but we are watching out. We haven’t invested yet, but that’s in the agenda for 2022.
[Boustouller gave the example of “digital twins” in AR/VR, which can help workers collaborate without being on-site, an advancement that’s also better from an environmental perspective.]
Opportunity amid career shifts
Boustouller highlighted several trends, which are related in some ways: people wanting to change their lives, self-employment, and the creator economy, all of which could call for new platforms.
Cybersecurity and infrastructure implications
Eric Boustouller: Remote working requires the right IT deployments across the corporate network. There have never been as many cybersecurity attacks as in the last two years, for a very simple reason: People are working from anywhere, and therefore, companies are exposing themselves to lots of security vulnerabilities.
This needs to be fixed, which means that many cybersecurity companies have been growing dramatically in the last 12 to 24 months, and there is more to come because it is a very complex space. So we are looking at lots of opportunities in cybersecurity. You may say it is not future of work, but it is: It is an enabler of hybrid work.
[Boustouller gave a second infrastructure-related example: The need for better networks, illustrated by C4 Ventures’ portfolio company DriveNets, a unicorn proposing a cloud-based alternative to network routers.]
On how Europe compares to other regions
Eric Boustouller: As someone who was in charge of Europe [at Microsoft], I can tell you Europe is not one Europe. There is a huge [cultural] gap between Northern [and] Southern Europe. But … Europe funding is booming, and this is also true for future of work. There are [many unicorns] … and a number of cities are waking up big time.
So Europe is closing the gap. In terms of adoption, the pandemic has been a huge accelerator, and digitalization has impacted Europe more so than the U.S. that was ahead of the pack before.
For sure, the pandemic is not something that we can be happy with, but it has driven some phenomena that are here to stay. The new normal is hybrid, and it is true for Europe as much as it is for the whole world.