"My strategy was first of all to become strong in France before attacking foreign markets," resumes Eric Vignat, head of the company. IA'S' aim is to market its electronic forest calliper abroad.

"Only three companies in the world produce this type of equipment, explains Eric Vignat, and I thought that it would be a good idea to offer the product on the European market initially, and then later move into export. We are helped by the fact that we already have a positive image linked to the rigour that the ONF have always shown in managing French forestry."

Though IA'S had already developed their operating and data capture software (from the forest to the sawmill, and including the logger.) with a view to international sales, the question still remained of how to ensure effective after-sales service.

"It took us 18 months to re-establish a partnership with a supplier. But we certainly didn't lose any time, since during this period the ONF placed an order for a thousand of our electronic forest callipers, in addition to the 3,000 electronic notebooks they had already purchased. We also used this time positively in order to adapt our software for the export market, which involved simplifying the management system and the development of multilingual programmes."

Today, IA'S is working with Ubifrance and ERAI (the International Agency of Rhône-Alpes Region) in order to recruit sales staff.

Eric VIGNAT
Director - IA'S

Source: Grand Angle 01 magazine produced by the Ain CCI