Agence Media Interactiv

In 2010, organic growth of 25% had been achieved. In France, 2011 turnover was €32.4M, compared with €23.8M in 2010. For the rest of the Group, 2011 turnover stood at €4.7 pro forma, three times the performance level in 2010. Staffing in France increased from 340 at year end 2010 to 485 at the end of 2011.
These results were achieved in a particularly gloomy global economic context, at a time when Syntec Numérique (the French professional chamber of digital trades) estimated growth in the IT market at just 3.6% for 2011.
Over the course of six consecutive years, average annual growth (CAGR) stood at 35%, with the vast majority accounted for by organic growth.

High quality acquisitions

In late 2009, Smile increased its capital, subscribed  by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, in order to finance acquisitions on a consolidating market. Different options were explored in 2010, and it was in 2011 that these ambitions were able to come to fruition, with three transactions completed last year.
In February, Smile announced the takeover of SQLI Med, the SQLI entity for the PACA and Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, thus enabling Smile’s consolidation in Marseille.
In September, Smile signed the acquisition of Dutch firm Stone-IT, the well known leader in open source support and infrastructure in the Netherlands.  Thanks to its recognised expertise, Stone-IT is particularly well established in the public and healthcare sectors.
In October, Smile announced the takeover of CA2i’s activities in Marseille, with, in particular, a number of major accounts such as Apave and EDF.
Lastly, Smile invested in Enalean in 2011, a start-up company that publishes the open source software Tuleap, designed for the Application Lifecycle Management market.  

Successful launches

Smile’s 2011 growth was driven in particular by open source solutions in the fields of EDM, e-Commerce, infrastructure and hosting.
In 2011, the company also consolidated its growth in France, opening new establishments in Aix/Marseille, Grenoble and Lille, bringing the total number of French establishments to eight, along with those in Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Bordeaux and Montpellier.
In Benelux, Smile opened a new agency in Brussels last September. With its agency in Amsterdam, Stone-IT based in Utrecht (Netherlands) and the new Brussels agency, Smile Benelux is now positioned to supply its entire range of open source solutions to this dynamic economic region.
In terms of its products, Smile rolled out a mobile package in 2011, based on cross-platform tools and the standard HTML5 as its universal platform. Whereas manufacturers’ market shares can sometimes change dramatically, the development of a unique application that can target all mobile devices on the market has become a clear necessity, and Smile has built up unique expertise in such developments. 
2011 also saw the launch of the ‘Open Source Guide’, a 250 page text that covers a very broad panorama of open source solutions in virtually every domain.  It is quickly becoming a benchmark document, downloaded by more than 15,000 people in the space of just three months.

Market share on the rise abroad

With close to 500 staff members in France at year end 2011, Smile is the undisputed leader in France on the market for open source expertise.  
International activities, which accounted for 6% of the Group’s business in 2010, represented 13% in 2011 and are expected to exceed 16% in 2012. Smile now operates in Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Morocco. 
The Ukrainian and Moroccan subsidiaries’ share of business is ‘offshore’ from the rest of the Group, although it should be noted that their local (non-Group) share exceeded 50% in 2011, taking full advantage of the excellent growth in these markets.
‘The largest companies see Smile as a solid partner, with both highly specialised expertise in open source solutions and the know-how needed to successfully complete major project packages. Many of our clients are international groups that appreciate the fact that Smile works in the different countries in which they operate’, explains Marc Palazon, Smile’s Chief Executive Officer.

Focusing on quality for 2012

‘After experiencing 80% growth over the past two years, we want to focus primarily on quality in 2012. We have no plans for strategic acquisitions in the short term; instead we will be concentrating on consolidation and operational excellence’, announces Marc Palazon.  
‘We would first like to strengthen our ties with our existing clients and to build lasting, diversified relationships of the highest quality with our largest accounts.  We want our clients to see us as their go-to supplier for anything relating to open source’, he continues.
‘Through open source products, Smile has also developed expertise that goes beyond the products themselves, to cover the rather vast domains of e-commerce, decision-making, ERP, content and document management, and high performance infrastructures and platforms.   In all of these fields, our clients also appreciate the functional expertise of our consultants’, concludes Marc Palazon.

The growth target for 2012 is 25% at the Group level, equivalent to Group turnover of nearly €45M.