At first glance, nothing seems more natural than viewing the software market as a global one. By definition, SaaS solutions—long referred to as “web-based”—are designed to cross borders and enable multinational organizations to rely on a single application environment. For more than twenty-five years, free—and at times even fierce—competition has pitted ambitious players against one another, most of whom aim for international, or at the very least regional, reach. But the landscape has changed. And it hasn’t changed because a leader of a dominant power suddenly decided to alter the rules of the game or impose prohibitive tariffs. It has changed because new requirements have emerged:First expressed by customers, then reinforced by technological advancements and regulations. In specifications, recent standards, and digital strategies, criteria are now being emphasized that clearly diverge from yesterday’s globalized approach: digital sovereignty, proximity of services, and strategic alignment, to name just a few. For a long time, market analysts—who more than a decade ago became true “kingmakers”—ignored these geographical nuances in order to promote all-encompassing solutions (often Anglo-Saxon, like themselves…). Last month, for the first time, one of them confided in me that his model needed to be revised. He even spoke of “deglobalization” of the e-Procurement market. Backed by figures, he showed me that the three global leaders—all American—have seen their market share decline over the past three years, while regional and national champions are emerging and gaining strength. So, of course, we’ll continue for a while longer to be sold magic grids, spider-web matrices, and other more or less fanciful diagrams—you don’t change a model that brings in… a lot of money. But the shift in awareness is well underway. In France, the software market remains overwhelmingly dominated by American software companies. This is nothing new: according to PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants), they hold 64% of the market, thanks to a dominant position in system software, tools, and infrastructure. Yet France has a diverse, dynamic, and particularly innovative. And among our neighbors—the Germans, British, and Scandinavians—there are also highly valuable players, often insufficiently known to French buyers. For now, it’s up to all stakeholders—vendors, consultants, integrators, and above all, customers—to move beyond outdated models and finally consider the solutions best suited to their own environments. Perhaps we’ll then see fewer projects—initiated by large procurement organizations and supported by the biggest consulting firms—that systematically boil down to the same four or five vendors, in a conformism that can sometimes be disheartening.
What do you think?
