Digital Editorial – February 13th, 2023

Why do our French solution providers have a hard time competing with American solutions? The simplest answer, which is not inaccurate, is that they are big, have a quasi-hegemonic presence and have a lobbying and marketing capacity that is out of all proportion to what we French can put up against them. However, among the richness of the French digital ecosystem, there are real efficient, innovative and quality solutions…
What other factors should be explored to explain these difficulties, in addition to the first explanation given in the preamble? One explanation that comes to my mind is that our entrepreneurs and “communicators” of the French digital environment, forget that the majority of their prospects and customers are not digital experts, even when the sector of activity is in the BtoB (business to business) and therefore we do not address the market of end consumers … What do I mean by that? The use of a language strewn with professional jargon can have a repulsive effect on customers.
In addition, most of our players communicate mainly (in addition to their institutional site) on American or Chinese social networks, where the target population is not necessarily present and where the filter bubble operation often limits the scope of marketing actions (Usine Digitale February 2, 23) and does not allow to optimally reach the target populations despite large marketing expenses…
American solutions provide packaged solutions that include a number of different functionalities / applications that may or may not be complementary and that avoid the end customer from asking questions about integrations, costs, etc…
It seems important to me that efforts should be focused on these areas: simple and clear communication that can be understood by non-experts, staying on the American SRs but probably investing only the minimum amount of time and money necessary, and above all creating partnerships with other players, in order to propose a packaged offer with a single contact, a clear price offer, and easy management…