| Interview with Jean-Claude Turri,
MD, Valtech France |
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Q: How would you
describe the current French market situation? |
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A: "The
last six months has been very challenging here in
France. Almost over night we witnessed a complete
stop in planned project and reluctance from clients
to invest in technology related projects". |
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Q: How do you
see the coming quarters? |
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A: "We
have mixed feelings regarding coming quarters. On
one hand, the Training business is growing again,
which is usually a sign that customers are preparing
themselves for future projects. The training business
is always first to suffer when clients are looking
to reduce cost", Jean-Claude tells. "Also
the rate of utilisation for IT consulting is currently
increasing. We have won new clients lately. Agefos
(semi public organisation and the biggest project
ever for France), JC Decaux, Miko (ice cream manufacturer,
a Unilever Division) and Scoot (Vivendi Group) are
very good examples of that. Our ERP unit is also
doing very well with large customers like Usinor
(Arcelor) and Renault.
The new financial unit (Banks and Insurance companies),
combining sector-specific management capabilities,
has done very well so far. It has already grown
to 20 professionals. Its ITN insurance software
capabilities are looked after vigorously. However
all our competencies are far from being used at
full rate. Training, IT consultants and management
consultants must fight every day to defend and,
whenever possible, improve our position on the
French market. Moreover, we are still struggling
with the drastic changes in our sales organisation
at the end of last year".
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Q: What's your
current sales and marketing strategy? |
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A: "We
are currently expanding our brand so that our customers
fully understand the recent expansion of our service
offering. Valtech in France is a good and positively
recognised brand for IT services. Most people know
the Valtech name and our reputation enables French
team to get access to top-level executives. This
gives them the opportunity to explain our new range
of services and compete for new complex projects.
One reason why the French organisation is optimistic
is this new orientation towards high-impact projects
mixing business issues, IT innovation, knowledge
transfer and training of the client. This is a
differentiator in the market. We are focusing
on 20 key accounts for this year and will increase
this to 30 for the next year. On each key account
we are assessing the potential in terms of training
plus business and IT consulting. We want to know
specifically where Valtech can make a difference
to the clients. Typically these are projects with
a high complexity and a high return on investment.
Sales, pre-sales and delivery teams heavily involve
management and IT consultants and Training".
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Q: What's your
position on the strategic offshore initiative? |
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A: "I
believe that our existing clients are potential
offshore customers and we are very attentive to
this. The offshore potential of each client will
systematically be worked into our existing missions
with the client. We expect mainly to focus on large
offshore accounts such as application maintenance
or large projects developed on a time and material
basis. Before the end of the year we expect to have
2-3 large projects and 3-5 smaller projects to test
our capability to master our offshore process". |
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Q: In France,
Valtech has strategic skills in SCM. Are you also
planning to increase the CRM team? |
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A: We have
recently added more strategy consulting capabilities
that have reinforced the CRM team. France has renamed
its CRM service line to "Customer Strategy
& Technology" (CST), which of course includes
all the traditional CRM service offerings. They
are two reasons: first the growing concerns regarding
some CRM projects that dedicate too much efforts
to the IT side and forget the customers, and secondly,
an attempt to distinguish our service offering from
numerous existing CRM services provided by our powerful
competitors. CST includes, besides CRM traditional
offerings, some customer-related specific offerings
like strategic marketing, experiential marketing
and new product development. |
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Q: Any other initiatives
that you would like to mention? |
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A: In June
France will launch an assessment of its processes
following the CMM methodology. Results are due for
beginning of July. The French management team will
then have to prioritise the improvement efforts.
The objective is to have France software projects
management processes certified CMM level 3 by 2004.
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Jean-Claude Turri
profile
As the founder of the Groupe Ouroumoff and Axelboss
Consultants, Jean-Claude has more than 25 years
of experience in Management Consulting. At Valtech
France, Jean-Claude is in charge of defining the
integrated offer ranging from management consulting
to technology deployment. These services cover purchase
(market place, e-procurement), SCM, CRM, ERP implementation,
EAI and e-business. Valtech France employs 280 people
and has offices in Paris and Toulouse with training
partners also in Lyon and Geneva, Switzerland. |
