Our vision at UR Lab
Creating better places together
URW Lab is Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Lab for Innovation.
To create Better Places together, URW Lab has 3 missions:
UNDERSTAND
Our prospective approach
Setting up a Vision for the Future
Today, the world is facing major shifts. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has started an internal exploration aiming at identifying the social and technological trends that will transform society and shape Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s future. URW Lab organizes explorations with experts, learning expeditions, workshops, and leads surveys on people across Europe.
Building on the findings, the idea is to structure our strategic vision and devise disruptive products and services that will serve Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s projects.
TRANSFORM
Our 7 innovation priorities
Leverage visitor data to extend every client's value
- Gather data to better know our clients
- Create interaction to build an individualized relationship
- Increase their spending baskets by sharing relevant information for them
Convert our places to omnichannel O2O places
- Convert our places from physical to omnichannel platforms
- Generate value for retailers by converting our logistics to new standards of online retail
Design appealing mixed-use destinations
- Create additional reasons of visits
- Offer more than daily shopping (space to work, live and enjoy)
- Build neighbourhoods and new mobility transportation hubs
Charm the best digital-native brands
- Create the most attractive places for online brands and develop and acquisition-focused business model
- Dedicate units for conscious brands and support them in their growth
Use IoT and Cloud to create smart assets
- Leverage new technologies to better monitor and manage buildings
- Build the adequate digital infrastructure to support URW omnichannel and data ambitions
Create new business metrics
- Adapt to our customers' behaviors (showrooming in-store, click & collect, etc.)
- Ensure our metrics adapt to our new B2B clients' priorities (acquisition, retention, growth, etc.)
INVOLVE
Innovation programmes
Launched in 2014, Innovation Champions is an internal career opportunity designed for the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Employees who are eager to develop their innovation and creative skills. Innovation Champions were imagined as Intrapreneurs (i.e. behaving like entrepreneur while working within a large organisation) in charge of a particular exploration or pilot project on a strategic topic: 3D technology, urban agriculture or chatbots for instance.
The ICGP offers employees of the Group the opportunity to participate in training programmes dedicated to innovation and devote up to 20% of their time to innovation projects. In 2017, 25 collaborators of the Group participated to the programme.
