You launched your international development in the late 1980s. Can you walk us through the major milestones?
Initially, we leveraged the reseller network that the Bodet Group’s clockmaking division had built long before us. This distributor network already covered many countries. When Kelio started selling internationally in the late 80s, we approached these distributors to offer them our time-tracking systems, exactly as we had previously offered them clocks.
But we quickly realized this model had its limits. These distributors were essentially electricians, used to installing hardware. They weren’t cut out to sell and deploy IT solutions at all. We had to change our approach.
What was your first real international setup?
In 1990, the CEO at the time struck a deal with a Spanish partner, and together they created our first subsidiary in Madrid. Two years later, sales took off in Spain, and we decided to launch a second subsidiary. I was the one who went over to run it in 1993, in the UK. It was a “from scratch” creation – no acquisition, just a small team and hardcore cold calling. Today, Kelio UK is our second-largest subsidiary in terms of bottom-line results, and it has grown every single year for thirty years.
After that, we set up our Swiss subsidiary in 2000 by buying out a retiring distributor, then the Netherlands in 2010 by acquiring a competing brand’s distributor, and finally Germany in 2023.
Was Canada a less conclusive attempt?
We tried for ten years. We never broke the €50,000 revenue mark. We switched distributors multiple times but never found the right formula. American companies have a massive stranglehold over there, and conversely, they struggle to break into the French market – it’s somewhat symmetrical. At some point, you have to admit that you might simply not be a good fit for a market. So, I told my team: no more special efforts on Canada.
In 2023, did Germany mark a paradigm shift in your approach?
Completely. For all our previous subsidiaries, we had adopted a highly conservative strategy: we would start with three people, and hire a fourth or fifth as results trickled in. It was a solid foundation, but very slow. For Germany – the largest European market for time management systems – I was convinced we had to hit the ground running with a team of ten people right out of the gate. That is when we brought in Altios for the first time to accelerate our recruiting and legal structuring.
In Germany, 2024 was a foundational year, with results falling short of forecasts because we had unexpected turnover and had to restart some recruitment processes. But 2026 is off to a very strong commercial start; we are signing big-name German clients despite a tough economic climate there. I truly feel this is the year we take off. We expect to reach our break-even point after four fiscal years.
How do you manage cohesion between your headquarters in Cholet and your subsidiaries scattered across Europe?
The golden rule is that our subsidiary directors are true CEOs. On market-driven topics, they have the final say. Our marketing department consults them exactly as it consults the French market. That is how we managed to adapt our software into 17 languages and tailor it to each country’s specificities.
When it comes to customer support, we made a contrarian choice about ten years ago: we repatriated all support functions to France, but integrated native speakers for each country into the team. Previously, subsidiaries handled their own support, but they lacked the critical mass to do it properly – a deployment consultant working at a client’s site cannot handle an urgent call from another client at the same time. Since centralizing this, our support satisfaction rate has consistently topped 98%.
Team stability seems to be a central theme in your approach. Why is it so critical in your industry?
It is foundational in our line of work. Between the time we hire a consultant and the time they are fully operational, 12 to 18 months go by. For them to be truly excellent, it takes three years. When you lose someone with ten years of experience, they are not easily replaced. We play the long game, as family-owned businesses often do. What matters more than immediate performance is long-term sustainability.
Has going global driven innovations that you wouldn’t have developed otherwise?
Yes, I have two concrete examples. In 2008, the UK and the Netherlands pushed us to release our first smartphone app. Those markets were ahead of the curve on mobile usage, whereas in France, the demand wasn’t visible yet. We were among the first French software publishers to do it.
The second example is biometrics. Southern Europe – specifically Spain and Portugal – demanded fingerprint terminals, and later facial recognition after COVID. In France, the national data protection authority (CNIL) imposes so many constraints around biometrics that French companies simply don’t use them. Abroad, however, it has become a real market demand. These are use cases we probably wouldn’t have developed so early on without exposure to those markets.
If you had to distill thirty years of international experience into three pieces of advice for an SME executive looking to scale up, what would you tell them?
First: Put boots on the ground. Desk research isn’t enough. You have to physically go to the country, feel the business environment, and ask yourself if you can envision operating there. That relies on the CEO’s intuition.
Second: Put your trust in people. The best strategy in the world is worthless without the right people. You need trustworthy individuals who are capable of fully committing to a launch phase, because starting up is grueling.
Third: Be patient. You don’t crush a new market in a single year. You have to give yourself the time to build brand awareness and rack up early wins – and those wins will generate more wins. I would even go a step further: take your initial budget and your timeline, and double them both.
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