They are more than 5,500, employ a quarter of the employees, and yet one out of two French people does not know what an ETI is.
VSEs and SMEs, we know. But much less ETIs, mid-sized companies. However, they generate 30% of the turnover of all companies. These medium-sized companies – the acronym only dates back to 2008 – are little known, in particular because they are often located in the regions – two thirds of the head offices are located outside Île-de-France and 78 % of their production sites are in the provinces. An ETI is a company with between 250 and 5,000 employees.
>> Companies: the bosses of VSEs and SMEs are once again optimistic about their 2023 results
It is therefore no longer an SME and not yet a large group. According to a survey produced on Tuesday June 27 by Talentia, a software publisher, 52% of French people do not know what an ETI is. However, when we explain to them what it is, the formula is interesting. UOnce informed, 72% of French people say they could work in an ETI, against 54% in a large group and 54% also in a start-up. And three quarters of those questioned consider that they have a positive impact on employment.
Tours abroad
It is in particular the reindustrialization of France which is put to their credit, because half of respondents put this criterion forward. For Pierre Polette, CEO of Talentia, when we explain to them what an ETI really is, people have the intuition that it is the right model, the happy medium, even the best of both worlds, between large groups and SMEs, which combines solidity and agility. ETIs generate 33% of their turnover from exports and more than half of them say they want to open a new market abroad in 2023.
Pierre Polette emphasizes that, as in SMEs, there is the possibility of a career and that these are structures that have existed for tens or even hundreds of years. In any case, French ETIs are less valued than in Germany.
Pierre Polette emphasizes the difference between the anonymity of French ETIs, and the frustration that results from it, and the pride of their German equivalent, the Mittlestand, promoted by the Länder, which work in a network and have become a brand in their own right. In France, there is still a long way to go.