Helsinki Congress of the International Economic History Association, 21-25 August 2006: Session 93 Equipment goods and mass brands American business spreading modernity into France? Strategies
D. The tactics employed by American companies to help them anchor themselves in more firmly
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- Itt: a French company
- Ibm, a French company
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D. The tactics employed by American companies to help them anchor themselves in more firmly To have a “French profile” was thought to facilitate a commercial penetration and it always paid off to convince the authorities, the client or the public at large that the American group had been sufficiently Gallicized to seem at home even under the French tricolor…. a. French brands in the service of the Americans At the same time, some companies were a little more discreet regarding the American origins of their group so as not jar buyers’ sentiments. Such was the case for Chrysler, which allowed the Simca brand to keep its market share331 for two decades (from 1955 to the 1970s) as its clientele remained somewhat “chauvinistic” – except that they let themselves be seduced by the German cars, a fact which was used by Ford to announce, right from the 1960s, its historically German culture with as much gusto as its American antecedents. And the assertion of the family brand Chrysler332 in the 1970s led to a decline in the sales of Simca in France itself, despite substantial export orders. It was as though the French turned up their noses at American-wannabees. Thus Kodak continued to officially call itself in France Kodak Pathé and always juxtaposed Kodak Trade Mark and Kodak Pathé in all its advertisements in the 1970s. International, which had bought over the Yumbo brand of heavy construction equipment, kept the brand intact in France as well as for exporting: “With Yumbo shovels, International is ready to meet the French market.” 333 Sometimes, corporations completely hid themselves behind their dealers, as was the case with the industrial equipment firm Feralco334, a leader in its field, which had been bought over by Interlake Steel in 1965. Other groups too sought to project their French roots – wanting to capitalize from both their American power and their French backgound. This was evidently the case with both of Bull’s successive proprietors: GE Bull and then, Honeywell Bull. Chrysler too adopted a dual citizenship in the 1970s with its umbrella brand Simca-Chrysler in all its ads, even though the cars themselves had only Simca written on them. b. Companies which were as much French as American? Many of these corporations had been in France for so many decades that they began to identify themselves with not only the economic, but even the cultural dimension of their adopted country. They also began to be seen to be as much French as American – and it could even be that the majority of their clients were ignorant of their origins. This was certainly the case with Esso France (which recorded the tenth highest turnover in the private sector in 1966) or of Singer France, whose president Jacques Ehrsam was, in the second half of the 1960s, the figurehead of French patronage – often lauded for his social policies and his cultural activities. It was he who gave the money for renovating the glass panes in the cathedral at Reims335... Itt: a French company? In this regard, the most “French” company of all was Itt. It worked in France through two subsidiaries which had very French names and were deeply rooted in the national mindscape: the Cgct (Compagnie générale de constructions téléphoniques, with some 8 400 employees in 1971) and the Lmt (Le matériel téléphonique). In fact, from the 1920s, these two formed the pillars of the French telecommunication equipment industry. Together, they constituted an integral part of the officially recognized “cartel” which supplied to the government’s telephone services, the Ptt. They were also very much part of the three-year developmental plan launched by the Ptt in 1970. The Cgct and Lmt had also another “French” ace up their sleeve – they had a research and development center in France itself in the form of the Lct laboratory, staffed by teams of capable engineers (totaling some 1 700 in 1968). In addition, they were not limited by the French market because, within the Itt group, they had also the right to have their own export policy and to freely explore other outlets. During the 1960s and 1970s, many ads by the Cgct dwelt at length on its exporting capabilities: “The first French exporter of telephone equipment. From Mexico to Tahiti, Nigeria to Ireland, Cgct technicians are busy increasing French exports. Over the last six years, Cgct’s exports have risen, on the average, by more than 50 million francs. Pentaconta equipment has been installed in more than 70 countries.”336 In 1969, this company exported between one fifth to one third of its entire production337, which accounted for 71 per cent of all French telephone exchange equipment exports. Since 1951, the Cgct had produced the Pentaconta model of electromechanical telephone exchanges. In 1960 it launched the Pentaconta Crossbar, which was developed indigenously and which established it as one of the leaders of this kind of technology in Europe, in league with Ericsson’s French subsidiary and the 100 per cent French owned companies Cit-Alcatel and Thomson. Then in 1970, it developed the Metaconta 11A automatic electronic switchboard for the smaller telephone exchanges within companies. Similarly, another Itt subsidiary in France, Ascinter-Otis was so far from being seen as a tool of a multinational that even the takeover of its parent company Otis by United Technologies in 1976 passed completely unnoticed. Moreover, the fact that Otis had installed the first elevators in the Eiffel Tower in 1889 weighed heavily in favor of its brand being perceived of as quite French. Elsewhere, its factory at Gien grew to be, in 1969, the pivot of its production system at the European scale with the manufacture of “the first European standard elevator”338. Meanwhile, its center at Argenteuil was consolidated as its “development center”. In 1972, the Itt group as a whole had a workforce of some 26,000 employees in France339, but this was without it catching the eye of the general public as each brand led its own private life, except perhaps Claude, which appeared in advertisements as Itt Claude. The French section of the Itt conglomerate accounted for 6.6 per cent of its global turnover and 6 per cent of its total assets, which goes to show France’s importance in the world’s economy and underlines Itt’s success in giving to this country a value which was in keeping with its potential economic influence.
Ibm, a French company? The other major Franco-American group with a key French element was Ibm. Ibm’s French subsidiary, named Ibm France in 1948, enjoyed a substancial market share and benefited greatly from the newly dawned information age (which was threfore woefully under-equipped), and the fact that there was no major national competitor on the scene, as was the case in Great Britian. In the 1950s, it took the lead in turning the punch-card machines obsolete with the launch of the first calculator with electronic tubes, the Ibm 604. This was followed closely by the introduction of the first generation computers340. All the efforts made by the Franco-American Bull and the purely French Cii to eat into Ibm’s hegemony of the French market were like so many ant-bites to the giant. This in spite of Control Data’s iron grip on the very large computer segment and the incursion of Digital in the “mini-computer” market. Though Ibm was confronted by a national competitor (Honeywell-Bull in France, Icl, Siemens) in every major market, it retained its unquestioned preeminence.
We all know the role played by Ibm in the spread of the third generation computers (with integrated circuit boards and improved compatibility, i.e., the possibility of transfering software within the entire range) in 1963-1964. It was also instrumental in introducing administrative data processing to Europe (and France) via its famous range of Ibm 360 and 370 computers, including the 360-1904 mini-computer. It is no wonder then that Ibm maintained such a healthy share of the French market.
Though this subsidiary was very much a part of Ibm Worldwide, the entire French setup was an absolutely vital element in its European presence. In 1955, Ibm had two of its 13 active European factories342 implanted in France (at Corbeil and Vincennes) which it then fully integrated in its European production system: “Ibm World Trade Corporation continued to consolidate the production of Ibm products in its most suitably located European plants, in order to take advantage of the internal tariff reductions taking place among the nations within each of Europe’s two regional marketing areas.”343 Thus, from 1965, the 360 was made in the factory at Corbeil-Essonnes, which was only the third factory in the world to produce the 360, after the two in the continental us (at New York and at Burlington, Vermont): “One of the first of the 360 manufactured in France was delivered to an international research center and consulting firm there.”344 Then, in the 1970s, the 370 began to be produced in several plants all over Europe (Montpellier in France, Mayence in the Federal Republic of Germany, Havant in England) with components from the factory at Corbeil345. In 1965, France was one of only four European countries (the others being Great Britain, Sweden and Germany) to have a “commercial programming development facility”, with “program libraries” which combined hardware and software into a complete package for clients. Nevertheless, an evaluation of the actual extent of value addition brought in by the innovations and improvements made by Ibm France’s engineers, as compared to the laboratories established in Zurich (in 1956), in the Netherlands or in Germany, remains a dicey affair. Still, in the 1950s, it enlarged and refurbished its laboratory which had been established in 1934 and, more importantly, opened a scientific data processing center which worked mainly on in-house projects, though it too nurtured a few clients in the 1950s under the management of Jacques Maisonrouge. Then, in 1963, it established a research and development center at Nice-La Gaude where some 700 employees worked mainly on the application of computers to telecommunications – in keeping with the group’s international division of labor: “1969: The French industry is responsive. Ibm France proves it. It has doubled the floor space of its research center at La Gaude.”346 In 1981, five establishments brought together some 9,400 employees while Ibm France had a total of 20,600, including 8,400 executives347.
Thanks to this industrial and commercial clout, Ibm could insist on its French roots: in 1982, an infomercial (Ibm France’s contribution to the French economy. A 68-year long contribution to our economic life) stated that the company was the third highest tax payer in the country, that it was the fifth biggest exporter, with 49 per cent of its turnover coming from exports and that it had made massive investments with, for example, 2.4 billion francs in 1981 alone. It was a question of smoothing a few feathers which might have got ruffled by the perception of the multinational’s hegemony. It also was the reason why Ibm insisted on its strong links with the “France of the little ones” (the smaller enterprises) which included a local purchase policy and thereby sustained 6,000 suppliers while its subcontracting involved some 400 small and medium sized enterprises and 4 000 jobs348. In 1970, a series of advertisements appeared on the theme: “A French enterprise in the European economy” which highlighted the pivotal role played by Ibm France in Europe: “The factories of Ibm France supply the components to the other Ibm factories in Europe […]. While the big computers, the model 360, 40, 50, 65, are entirely built in Montpellier and delivered to five continents.”349 Moreover, an inventory management center for spares at the European scale was established at Orly. Ibm thus flowed into the national economic stream 350 and vindicated its label “Frenchified”. Or perhaps, one might say that it would surely have merited it when the president of IBM World Trade’s board and vice-president of IBM, Arthur Watson, who belonged to the family which controlled the group, was appointed ambassador to France in 1970… “He is responsible for much of the success and growth of our overseas operations.” 351 c. America at the service of a modern France A number of advertisements were very insistent on the strength of the commercial involvement of American firms in France. Almost every one of these American groups had found a well respected and traditional French firm which could serve as a solid stepping stone and give it a sheen of respectability. As a General Electric advertisement would have it: “The Ciments Lafarge [the leader of the French cement industry] has called upon General Electric to install the most modern automatic calculating system at their cement plant in Val d’Azergue (Rhône).”352 In a similar vein, an advertisement by Bull General Electric for its time sharing and facilities management system said, “250 French enterprises today have a secret computer”353 and then went on to list a series of big names (such as Télémécanique électrique, Banque de l’Indochine, Tréfimétaux and Shell France) which were all clients of this Franco-American group. Even more striking was the part played by American companies in projects which were of a national interest or importance. In such cases, the advertisements did not dwell so much on the American origins as on the contribution made by the innovations (which the reader knew well that they were from the us) to the French success. The brand thus received a sort of certificate of patriotism: “Xerox’s secret weapon. The engineers at Sud-Aviation will be able to reproduce all the Concorde plans by the tens of thousands! Straightaway, on ordinary paper, without negatives and without any developing process, thanks to the 3Copyflo 5 BC to be installed in a month by Rank Xerox’s French subsidiary.”354 “Lmt has designed and developed a research flight simulator for the supersonic Concorde aircraft and has also been entrusted with the study and development of a flight simulator for the Transall aircraft and the SA 330 helicopter.”355 Similarly, Timken also let it be known that it too was part of the Concorde program: “Concorde: Timken quality ball beatings for its landing gear!”356 And again, “For building the fastest commercial jet ever, Sud-Aviation required the fastest computer of all, the Control Data 6600.”357 Elsewhere, though it happened without any publicity campaigns, let us also note that the American Corning Glass group was busy developing the French Secam television tubes (as opposed to the American Ntsc and the European Ntsc-Pal) via its subsidiary Sovirel in association with Saint-Gobain. Still other advertisements dwelt on the typically French values, the defiance of the « little ones » against the « big ones », the taste of liberty – or else a competition for itself, or at the least, the competition between its suppliers – and consequently a sympathy with challengers: “We are the choice offered to your freedom”358 proclaimed a Honeywell ad which tried indirectly to break Ibm’s stranglehold of the computer parts market, hitting at those who “went around in circles, led by blind loyalty.” But Ibm retorted by publishing a “Declaration of the rights of small enterprises to have a computer” 359 when it brought out a range of small computers, the Ibm 3, followed by the 32, 34 and 38. Yüklə 1,17 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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