Dominique Louis
Chairman of the Executive Board 

Today, Assystem is a fast growing engineering company (a gazelle, in Prof. David Birch’s definition) but its recent history is really a story of rebirth.

Ten years ago, Assystem was a French nuclear engineering firm. We knew that our nuclear business was going to fall off sharply with the end of the French nuclear investment phase. So we identified what we felt would be attractive new markets for us, with a focus on the automotive and aerospace industries. And we were right—because in 2005, aerospace accounts for 30% of our revenue and the automotive industry 20%.

In late 1998, I realized that we weren’t expanding fast enough in these new markets, even as the nuclear segment was rapidly declining. I had a very bad feeling that Assystem might go out of business.

So I chose to follow the same strategy as the African gazelle: “to stay alive as long as possible.” I began by changing the company’s top management, before extensively rebuilding the organisation from 1999 to 2001, with the replacement of 50% of middle management. This process has changed our corporate DNA. We’re now a European company, with French roots. And today, I take a Darwinian approach to business. You have to constantly change and adapt, but that’s possible only if you regularly modify the company’s genetic code.

The way to secure a company’s survival, with the least possible disruption and pain, is through continuous adaptability, led by a far-sighted vision of future developments.

That was my mistake before 1998.

It’s hard to implement this process in a company, because sometimes there are contradictions between increasing efficiency in the short term and trying to prepare the company for its probable business environment over the medium term. You have to share this Darwinian vision with as many managers as possible.

You have to convince managers that today’s difficulties were caused by a lack of foresight five years ago. It’s just as important to solve today’s problems as it is to prepare for the medium-term.

At Assystem, my job is primarily to convince people everyday that tomorrow will be better and to push through the mutations in our corporate DNA.

Dominique Louis

Chairman of the Executive Board