Internationalisation of Service Activities in the Haute-Garonne

Business service activities are more and more concerned with the internationalisation of their markets. Besides the well known examples of large global service firms, this process is also affecting an ever growing number of small-sized enterprises now acting at the international level. This article presents some empirical results from an original survey conducted in a French region with the Toulouse Chamber of Commerce. It shows the recent extent of the opening towards foreign markets, which concerns particularly the professional services. Business service firms having developed an international market activity (whether exporting by themselves or acting indirectly through local affiliates) belong mainly to three major types of activities: technical consultancy (including software industries and engineering), management consultancy (including also advertising, commercial intelligence and human resources consulting) and logistics (transportation and related activities). Most of them have begun without any local investment but have now developed different kinds of networks which are discussed in the article. Others remain 'pure' exporters exclusively relying on new telecommunication means to maintain relationships with their clients abroad. The survey reveals that small professional services firms are using original methods to cope with the difficulties of international service markets.