What is most striking when exploring B2B high-tech companies is both:
- The very large size of large groups whose names the general public barely knows, unlike B2C companies, which are much smaller but whose commercial brands are known to everyone
- the very large number of SMEs in most sectors of activity, most often totally unknown, whether or not they gravitate towards the large groups
Characteristics of high-tech B2B / B2G companies
- Advanced technologies
- Professional or government markets
- Significant technical investment to develop products and offerings
- Technically oriented culture and management
These are the characteristics most often found in B2B/B2G high-tech companies, often combined with international competition, locations in many countries and project activities.
High-tech B2B/B2G: little known companies
Large groups, ETIs, small companies or technological start-ups whose names are known only to specialists but which are leaders in their market, public and private research laboratories, supervisory bodies, control, regulation or certification, etc.: the B2B/B2G high-tech universe weighs heavily on the economy and employment.
However, B2B/B2G high-tech companies are generally very little known outside their sphere of activity. Either the general public does not know the small or medium-sized companies at all, or it knows the large groups only by name or through one of their activities or one of their emblematic products: if we take the aeronautics sector as an example, the general public rarely knows that Latecoere is a major player in aerostructures and employs more than 5000 people. Everyone knows about Airbus and Dassault Aviation, but who knows about all the activities of the Airbus group or the Dassault group? Many people would be hard pressed to describe the activities of the Safran group (77,000 employees and a turnover of 15.3 billion euros in 2021) or the Thales group (81,000 employees in 68 countries and over 16 billion euros in 2021)!
Common features of high-tech B2B / B2G companies
Regardless of the industry, there are common traits in all B2B/B2G high-tech companies, regardless of the markets and customers they serve, and regardless of the products and offerings they provide. The mix of traits may vary, but all these “engineering companies”, as they are sometimes called, have many common characteristics.
Specific clients: organisations
First of all, their customers are organisations, whether public or private, and not final consumers, even though they may exceptionally also sell on the final market, for example for spare parts. This will therefore lead these companies, like any B2B/B2G company, to practice a particular management of their customer portfolio. This will range from “major accounts” to smaller customers, since these customers may be a small number of major accounts and/or a larger number of medium-sized customers and/or a large number of small customers.
The relationship with client organisations is therefore both complex and vital. This relationship will need to be as individualised as possible, both with each client and with each type of decision maker or influencer in the client organisation. The relationship may go as far as co-financing and joint development of products, including or not sharing intellectual property.
Technological products and offers
They are then companies whose products and offers are technological, the technological level ranging from proven technologies to highly innovative technologies and/or competing with the world’s innovation elite in a given sector. This will induce both close contacts with research laboratories and a legitimate obsession, a specific organisation and a particular need for funding for innovation. It will also frequently lead to significant time, cost and risk associated with product development that must be mastered.
These products will generally have a long life on the market. As products and offers are constantly compared with those of other companies, all of the above will lead to a great deal of attention being paid to innovation, to the allocation of resources between products and to all the stages of their life cycle.
Of course, as in any business, this will require effort:
- Competitiveness
- Quality of customer service
- Promotion
- Communication
A technical culture
Finally, B2B/B2G high-tech companies obviously have a strong predominance of technical culture (as well as financial culture) and engineers at the highest levels of the organisation. This is both a valuable asset and a challenge that they will have to overcome compared to less technological or B2C companies.
Business and marketing culture is often less widespread than technical culture. They will have to balance technical culture and marketing culture in order to find a delicate balance between what the technique offers or can do and what the market and customers demand. This balance is often called the “techno-push” and “market pull” balance.
In addition to this first balance, if the company sells projects that include products, another balance must be found between the requirements of the projects (detect them, capture them, win them and, above all, carry them out with satisfactory profitability) and the requirements of repeatability and competitiveness of the products.
Service or construction companies
Service or “works” companies have a very technical culture but are more markedly “field”, and are proud of it. They belong to the high-tech B2B world for several reasons:
They are also generally engineering-led companies, although there are a large number of technicians or field operators.
Even if they are not responsible for the design (if the service is not integrated by the designer, which is often the case), they have experience of the product “in service” and provide valuable feedback for the next generation of products.
Their role is essential to keep highly technological products and solutions “in operation”. For example, it is prestigious to design an aircraft but the role of the aircraft maintenance company is vital to ensure that it does not become unsafe or grounded.
Examples of B2B / B2G high-tech companies
Let’s take a few examples of companies to get a better idea of what a high-tech B2B/B2G company can be. There are obviously a multitude of companies in the various technological sectors in Europe, the USA, the Middle East, Asia, etc. We will take just a few examples here to give an idea of their variety, bearing in mind that large companies are often the “principals” (and sometimes the buyers) of smaller companies within their sector.
A few examples of large companies and groups known in France, linked to their best-known sector of activity.
- Aerospace Defence: Airbus, Boeing, Dassault Aviation, Safran, Thales, BAE systems, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies (Sikorski helicopters), Raytheon (missiles), Textron (Bell helicopters and Cessna business aircraft), General Dynamics, Rockwell Collins
- Land and naval platforms: Alstom, Naval Group
- Electrical equipment, energy management and industrial automation: Schneider Electric, GE
- Automotive equipment: Valeo, Faurecia
- Electronic components: Intel, TSM,
- Professional IT (Hardware, software, Services): Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP, Atos, Samsung, Huawei, AT&T
- Materials: Lafarge Holcim, Solvay
- Construction: Vinci, Bouygues
Some examples of TMEs
- Latecoere (aerostructures and interconnecting systems)
- Airplane Delivery (aeronautical maintenance)
- Daher (aircraft manufacturer, industrial equipment and services)
- Liebherr (aeronautical and railway systems)
- Scopelec (telecommunication integrator)
- Slack technologies (internal instant messaging, video conferencing, intelligent productivity robots)
Some examples of SMEs and technology start-ups (usually only known in their sector of activity)
- Visual Sound, Inc: Touch Screens – Interactive Display System
- AMETEK Land: Thermal imagers
- MAVERICK Technologies: Automation Control Design and Installation Services
- Modern Intelligence (Maritime Surveillance)
- Neuron soundware (intelligent system for detecting mechanical problems on machines)
- Customer Clever (facial recognition for ticket gates)
- Naarea (molten salt nuclear reactor, so-called “fourth generation” nuclear technology)
- Meshmerize (German startup, industrial quality wireless mesh network for autonomous drones or connected cars)
- numerous electrical and electronic installation companies
- a large number of IT services companies
