French president, François Hollande, was recently in China for an official visit to the BERNARD CONTROLS teams in the Chinese subsidiary & factory of the Group. This is a key event for the French industrial SME, which recently became an intermediate size company: an event which stresses a successful internationalization and the achievement of a long and hard work still in progress. The Group now gathers 9 subsidiaries and 2 sales offices in the world, for a turnover of 50 million euros. “The path from SME to intermediate size business is just like a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly: it implies a long-lasting internal transformation”, states Guillaume Bernard, Asia Director and son of the CEO Etienne Bernard. In the 1960s, the French SME chose to sell abroad. First of all in Europe, then in the United States, followed by Asia in the 1980’s. In 1987, the company started selling in the Chinese market, under the leadership of EDF and Framatome, for the construction of Chinese power plants. Then, in 2007, BERNARD CONTROLS Group created a factory, which opened the doors to the other Chinese industries. This establishment in China was chosen because this country-continent is the only one to offer both a large national market and a fast growing international market: indeed, Chinese engineering companies sell power plants, cement factories, water treatment plants… to developing countries in South America, Asia and Africa, while buying equipment in China. Henceforth, relying on the structure of an intermediate size company and on BERNARD CONTROLS CHINA’s logistics, the Group opens subsidiaries in any country of Asia with potential business opportunities, such as the two new subsidiaries recently opened in Korea and Singapore. During his visit, François Hollande recognized BERNARD CONTROLS as a model for its successful transformation into an intermediate size company (source: AFP). He declared: “Technology and development of enterprises, competitiveness, as well as innovation and quality work, are the key assets to reach the promises made to the French people.”