Lorraine: the business incubator network demonstrates its quality with NF Service certification

After 18 months’ work, the 12 structures of the Réseau Lorrain des Pépinières d’Entreprises (RLPE) have been awarded NF Service certification. Read the testimonials of the heads of organizations committed to improving their services to entrepreneurs over the long term.

The RLPE has selected the AFNOR Group to help its twelve member nurseries improve their efficiency. From October 2013 to March 2014, their employees received support and training to improve organization and develop a culture of sharing best practices within the nursery network. All have embarked on a process of continuous improvement of their services, benefiting on average over 1,000 project owners and 380 new businesses every year.

On November 17, 2015, the nurseries officially received their NF Service certificates. This is a first in France for a nursery network. Since then, the success has been collective: business owners who are supported and accommodated can rest assured that their incubator’s coordinators are constantly improving the quality of their services; public players benefit from a network of incubators that is more transparent and remobilized to provide effective services to Lorraine’s economic players.

Finally, this innovative approach represents a real asset for all the incubators in the future Greater Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne region.

Extracts from testimonials :

Laurent Waldvogel, Vice-Chairman of RLPE and Director of CAREP: “We are better able to transmit harmonized information on our activities and to project ourselves into the future by proposing solutions.”

 

Amélie Freihuber, ADSN project manager, RLPE quality manager and referent site for the network approach: “We’ve set up cross audits between all the nurseries. The idea is for one coordinator to evaluate a neighboring nursery, so as to be ready on the day of the real audit. This is an essential point: all the structures retain their specific features. Each incubator is localized, and has knowledge of local economic and political players. The shared approach never erases the DNA of each one.

 

Noémie Choppin, manager of the Bar-le-Duc and Commercy business incubators, CCI de la Meuse : “There are two of us to run the two structures: it’s not much, but with the organization in place, we manage to offer continuity of service. For example, during vacation periods, the booklet we’ve created explains everything about the nursery, including access codes to the servers, instructions in the event of a fire alarm, how to draw up an invoice, and how to keep company names up to date so that, if they change, we don’t have to refuse a fold brought in by a deliveryman… In short, these are simple things, but they would have been harder to put together without the sharing approach generated by network certification.”

Links

> Find out more about NF Service-certified nurseries.

> Find out more about NF Service certification for business incubator activities

^{Image (c) Afnor}