1.2.1. Adapting to the environment

It is the large enterprise that is mainly targeted by traditional approaches to strategy, the SME being only a special case, a miniature one, on which to apply the vision and tools of strategic management.

In these studies, the environment is understood as an exogenous factor that is imposed on the company. The company has no choice but to try to predict and adapt to the future (Aurégan et al. 2008). To do this, the company uses analytical tools that allow it to take clear strategic directions. Also, the company’s strategy is affected by an environmental determinism (Gueguen 2001): it adapts to the environment, seeking to obtain the “fit”, in other words the best balance of the strategy with the environment. The SWOT model is an emblematic tool of this approach. It positions the company in its environment in terms of balance. However, taking into account the changes in the organization’s strengths and weaknesses has made it possible to (re)think this adequacy over time with the use of scenarios (Saïas et Métais 2001). Michael Porter’s Five (+1) Forces Model and the Boston Consulting Group’s Advantage Matrix are also emblematic: they enable us to understand the environment’s influence on business using an analysis of a sector’s competitive structure.

Through this prism, the SME is generally not perceived as having a specific relationship with its environment; at best the constraint is considered amplified (Guilhon 1998). Thus, at the SME level, the environmental determinism of the classical approach borders on “environmental fatalism” (Gueguen 2001, p. 10). The phenomenon worsens in a hostile environment; in this case, SMEs appear to be even more dependent on their environment than large enterprises, due to “their limited resource bases and relative inabilities to survive the consequences of poor managemerial decisions” (Covin and Slevin 1989, p. 75). In doing so, the classic paradigm of strategy has reinforced the idea that SMEs are the equivalent of large enterprises with weaknesses and shortcomings that aggravate their fragility in their environment.

Despite the reductive nature of companies’ relationships with their environment in traditional approaches, these approaches stress that one of the conditions for their sustainability is the development of increased vigilance, which has been based, since the 1990s, on the development of monitoring tools. Going beyond the mere collection and management of information, monitoring is de facto a real “continuous and largely iterative activity aimed at actively monitoring the technological, commercial and environment, etc. in order to anticipate future change” (AFNOR 1998)¹. In particular, strategic intelligence aims to collect and analyze relevant information about the company’s environment and enables it to make appropriate strategic decisions. It does not only concern large enterprises: the SME manager must also be attentive to their environment (Lafaye 2018).

When it comes to listening to the environment, the champions seem to be start-ups. Creating a company with high potential requires strong innovation to legitimize the arrival of a new player in an often saturated competitive environment. Also, at the beginning of start-up creation, “listening” to the environment tends to take place. This is done by the manager who is generally considered a visionary. This listening sheds light on business opportunity, with a “good” idea leading to satisfying a need that has not (or badly) been satisfied so far, or to solving a problem that has not (or badly) been solved before. However, this good idea is far from being enough to make a good start-up entrepreneur, any more than an SME. The challenge then remains to move from the business project to the company project, seen as a production unit combining, on the one hand, resources and skills to make the offer a reality, and, on the other hand, a human group to be managed and a decision-making center to be sustainable. When this small business grows, the challenge is to maintain this entrepreneurial spirit and listen to the environment, while regularly developing the business project. Prismaflex (Box 1.1) illustrates the importance of listening to the environment throughout the company’s life, from its creation to its development.

This example shows us that SMEs can succeed in reacting to changes in their environment, provided they are attentive to signals, sometimes weak, heralding crises, new regulation or the emergence of new expectations. The main issue then concerns the ability to give meaning to these signals.

1.2.2. Giving meaning to environmental scanning

There is a plethora of work on the collection and analysis of information, the perception of weak signals and prospective analysis (Baumard 1991; Lesca 1994; Mevel and Abgrall 2009). But information scanning is not simply a case of listening carefully and analyzing the environment, it is also a case of drawing strategic meaning from this information (Lafaye and Berger-Douce 2012; Lafaye 2018). In the case of SMEs, it is true that their inclusion in their immediate environment, reinforced by the close relationships that the manager easily forges (Torrès 1999), constitutes a favorable ground for listening to the environment (Julien and Marchesnay 1988). However, this presents a risk of short-term and overly reactive decision-making (Gueguen 2004). Beyond the difficult collection of information, one of the difficulties for SMEs remains the transformation of monitoring into relevant strategic decisions. This difficulty raises the question of the ability of SMEs to create strategic meaning from this information, especially since this meaning is not a given, but remains to be constructed. In this perspective, Lafaye and Berger-Douce (2012) show that, despite its complexity, collective listening at an inter-organizational level is an interesting solution in the case of SMEs. These enterprises may be limited in this capacity and in the resources to be entirely devoted to it.

However, if the traditional approaches to the strategy have the advantage of raising awareness about listening to the environment, several criticisms have been made of them for two main reasons. The first reason is methodological: the restrictive vision of the environment, conceived as data, is not appropriate. The second reason is more pragmatic: the multiplication of breakthrough strategies questions the idea that companies’ performance is based on a single adaptation to their environment. Child (1972) was one of the first to criticize environmental constraint by showing that the company has the ability to manipulate environmental characteristics. Beyond determinism, what Bourgeois (1984) also criticizes is the reductionist view of classical approaches that “tend to focus on one independent variable (e.g. degree of turbulence), as it causes managers to manipulate one dependent variable (e.g. structure)”. Thus, the deterministic vision relegates management to a “reactive-adaptive prison”, at best it “becomes a computational exercise” (Bourgeois 1984, p. 586).

In response to these criticisms, a second approach to the company’s relationship with the environment has developed. We refer here to the framework for interpreting the success of Japanese companies in the 1980s proposed by Hamel and Prahalad (1989), coupled with the development of the resource-based view (or RBV), largely inspired by the two authors². The challenge of breaking away from the traditional approach is fundamental, particularly for SMEs, because it makes it possible to develop a real theory of strategic behavior that opens up a degree of freedom for companies, particularly SMEs.

1.3.1. Conceptual framework

In their seminal article, Hamel and Prahalad (1989) used strategic intent to help explain the conquest of previously dominated companies, in this case, Japanese companies. Unlike strategic planning, strategic intent is an attitude, sometimes very combative, that allows people to free themselves from environmental constraints by setting original and ambitious long-term objectives. This intention requires, in particular, imagination to consider markets that do not yet exist (Hamel and Prahalad 1991). By having strategic intent with ambitions that a priori exceed capacities, the company risks finding itself with a lack of resources. Of course, strategic intent leads the manager to choose an appropriate portfolio of resources and skills. However, this is not necessarily enough. The originality of Hamel and Prahalad’s work is that it argues that it is precisely “the gap between a company’s resources and its managers’ goals” that constitutes the sources of competitiveness (Hamel and Prahalad 1993, p. 75). As a result, the company is in a situation where it can learn and succeed, particularly thanks to the leverage and tension caused by this gap. In the original approach to strategic intent, therefore, willingness is more important than environmental constraints. In other words, more than the company’s specific resources, it is imagination that counts, competition being “product versus product”, and also “mindset versus mindset” (Hamel and Prahalad 1993, p. 77).

In terms of strategic intent, the company is not necessarily constrained by the environment: it can act, but it can also seek to transform it, leaving the traditional aspects of its sectoral environment. What enables us to consider this possibility is the Resource Based View (RBV) approach, which is the integration of Hamel and Prahalad’s work into the academic field: it allows the company’s resources and skills to be placed at the forefront. In this approach, the company’s performance is based on the combination of its specific resources and skills. With regard to SMEs, the strategic intent and RBV approaches therefore provide an opportunity to overcome the environmental fatalism that affects them, for several reasons developed in section 1.3.2.

1.3.2. The emancipation of SMEs from the environment

We retain two main reasons why strategic intent and RBV approaches allow us to consider that SMEs are able to free themselves from the framework imposed by the environment.

The first is that these approaches make it possible to consider the SME, above all, by the potential represented by the strength of the manager’s strategic intention. A manager’s centrality is highlighted in the literature on SMEs. Indeed, in SMEs, it is essentially the manager who imagines, develops, realizes, and also shares their vision (Filion 1991; Filion and Lima 2011). The manager’s position is such that, in the particular case of the VSB, the company “becomes a very small world in which the center is the ownermanager” (Torrès 2015, p. 341)³.

The second reason is that these approaches make it possible to provide a framework that is particularly adapted to the specific nature of SMEs, as analyzed by Olivier Torrès, for example. In order to define the SME less by its size than by its nature, the latter shows that proximity is the main basis and range of decisions taken in the SME (Torrès and Gueguen 2008; Torrès 2015). Indeed, whatever the type of decision, “an SME manager’s field of action is most often limited to the nearest environment” (Torrès and Gueguen 2008, p. 104), proximity being understood in a broad sense (spatial, hierarchical, functional, temporal, or involving coordination and information). While this result defines the (limited) scope of an environment relevant to SMEs, it also highlights how SMEs mobilize their resources.

To demonstrate the central role of proximity, Olivier Torrès’ work is inspired by psychological research, in particular Moles and Rohmer’s law of proxemics (1978). The latter shows how, in a subjective approach to space, what is “close” is more important than what is distant to individuals. For Olivier Torrès, this law corresponds to SME reality: the degree of importance of their analysis and actions is organized according to criteria of proximity. This explains de facto why the management of SMEs is so personalized.

In line with the RBV, this law of proxemics describes, in short, the specific way in which SMEs mobilize their resources. It is verified in a number of cases detailed by Olivier Torrès and Gaël Gueguen (2008).

This is the case, for example, for exports. The authors show that SMEs choose places according to, first and foremost, cultural proximity, legislation, business practices, level of education, language, etc. This allows them to limit international risks (Dominguez and Mayrhofer 2018). This is also the case in the choice of successor: the manager who sells their business, first turns to their family, employees, then to customers, suppliers and, ultimately, to third parties. This is also noticeable in the choice of growth methods: first within the same sector, the same activity and among the same customers. Torrès and Gueguen (2008) show that this is also true for recruitment choices and financial management (self-financing, then bank financing before considering opening up capital). This proximity principle also plays an important role in the external development of SMEs, particularly as part of their network strategy. Finally, we note that the very content of strategic choices is influenced by this law: SMEs tend to follow development trajectories based on specialization.

We can find an interesting explanation for this proxemic mobilization of resources, characteristic of SMEs: it is the product of limited rationality that prevails particularly in small businesses (Torrès and Gueguen 2008). By reducing uncertainty, proximity makes it possible, firstly, to make decisions, to strengthen trust and bonds, and to decipher the implicit: “When we are closer, we understand each other better” (Torrès and Gueguen 2008, p. 104)⁴. Secondly, proximity makes it possible to strengthen control. This second explanation echoes the RBV framework, where the challenge for the company is not always to own VRIN resources⁵; it is also to control specific resources that do not belong to it.

Thus, proximity, which is the main criterion for SME decision-making and management, supports the strategic intent and RBV approach to understanding the SME’s relationship to its environment. It provides it with the capacity to effectively mobilize resources.

It can, however, make this approach more complex in regards to the following two points:

• – by its tendency to encourage a manager to plan in the short term, whereas strategic intention requires a long-term perspective;
• – by the tacit aspect of its implementation, while strategic intent, such as RBV, requires making the decision implicit.

In any case, this proactive approach enables the SME to envisage emancipation from environmental constraints or even a transformation of this environment, even with limited resources. Because “where Porter looks at the dominant figures, their strengths, the structure of the industry and competitive forces, Hamel and Prahalad study the dominated, the areas of uncertainty, the weak points, the asymmetries and the weak signals” (Métais and Saïas 2007, p.322)⁶. Since this approach considers that competitive play can be disrupted by a company’s resources and skills, it therefore questions, in particular, the SME’s ability to modify dominating relationships in an industry. In this perspective, the case of the Caudalie brand (Box 1.2) illustrates how an SME can succeed with a resource-based approach in a dynamic and competitive sector such as the cosmetics industry.

Despite its contributions, the RBV approach, applied here to SMEs, has not escaped criticism. First, as Métais (1999) points out, the identification of VRIN resources is not very effective, while their analysis ultimately closely resembles Porter’s value chain. Second, it does not make it possible to understand how to radically transform the environment (or react to) and conduct (or defend against) a breakthrough strategy. To do this, it required theoretical extensions that we propose to study in the following section.

1.4.1. A conceptual evolution to think about in the transformation of the environment

This new competitive landscape and these new strategic practices require a conceptual framework that allows us to understand:

• – the hypercompetition context and its impact on competitive relationships;
• – strategic processes that allow breakthrough strategies to develop in this environment.

Various works, generally in addition to and/or as an extension of the RBV approach, make it possible to do this. However, the role of SMEs remains limited.

For D’Aveni (1994; 1995), what specifies the new competitive landscape in recent decades is the notion of hypercompetition, characterized by, among other things, market turbulence, increased demand and a decline in entry barriers. In this environment, companies’ competitive positions are fundamentally unstable (D’Aveni et al. 2010). Consequently, the most successful companies are not those seeking a sustainable competitive advantage, but those that rely on a succession of temporary advantages, at the cost of permanently challenging their own position. The potential reasons for this volatility of competitive advantages are numerous. D’Aveni et al. (2010) provide a long list:

“technological change, globalization, industry convergence, aggressive competitive behavior, deregulation, the privatization movement stimulated by governments or hedge funds, government subsidies, the rise of China, India, and other emerging countries, the increase in availability of patient venture capital money, terrorism, global political instability, the pressure of short-term incentives for senior executives to produce results, etc.” (D’Aveni et al. 2010, p. 1372)

However, the end result is that no factor is truly and clearly identified.

While the origins of this unstable environment are difficult to establish, it is possible to clearly understand its implications: a permanent renewal of competitive advantages that can be characterized by strategies that are sometimes described as aggressive (Ferrier 2000), or even as self-destructive competition. The Apple brand is emblematic of this type of permanent innovation strategy, which extends to the cannibalization of its own products. Rather than a traditional strategic analysis in terms of static position (with reference to generic strategies and resources and skills), this situation of hypercompetition implies, indeed, a strategy of permanent movement. This is defined by continuous innovation and creativity, organizational flexibility and strategic agility.

To explain these mechanisms, various studies first try to better understand the foundations of new forms of competitive dynamics (Smith et al. 2001a and 2001b; Roy 2004; Roy 2010). These approaches are based on an interactionist approach to competition: they give a central role to strategic action, which is created following action-reaction sequences. They provide a framework that allows us to establish that an industry does not have a spontaneous structure, and that results from a succession of competitive strategies.

More precisely, in hypercompetition, companies compete for profit zones that they constantly develop. This means that, in strategic terms, it is no longer appropriate to pursue a competitive advantage, but to change it permanently. This change has resulted in the development of the term “strategic innovation”. For Hamel (2000), this form of innovation, or metainnovation, is based on a company’s ability to continually reinvent its strategy, organization and even its sector of activity⁹. In this context, what is important is no longer dominating a sector, but being creative about how to implement key competences and develop new business models; nor is it to follow sectoral rules of games, but to collectively shape the sector in the future (Hamel and Prahalad 1994). For Markides (1997), this strategic innovation leads to a redefinition of what business is. To complement the understanding of strategic innovation, Kim and Mauborgne’s (2005) work emphasizes the ability of companies to emerge from the “red oceans” of competition, to create “blue oceans”, untapped market spaces, without ultimately seeking to replace existing markets. If it is appropriate to break with the rules of the sectoral game, the question that remains is: how do we do it? Section 1.4.2 proposes methods to achieve this.

1.4.2. Methods for developing strategic innovation

In his pioneering article, Markides (1997) proposes four potential sources of strategic innovation consisting in redefining:

• – its business;
• – customers (with the objective of discovering a niche that will eventually become larger than the traditional market);
• – offers;
• – processes (in particular by extending core competences).

From this perspective, it is not so much technological innovation that is the lever for strategic change, as innovation in the way in which one defines, conducts and derives income from one’s business. It is therefore necessary to adopt a much more global vision of innovation that leads to organizational, commercial and managerial innovations, among others.

To designate this complex set of strategic decisions that the company defines (and regularly redefines) and that can disrupt the environment, some authors have used the notion of business design (Slywotzky 1997), or even “strategic configuration” (Saïas and Métais 2001). These are decisions about how to target customers, differentiate the offer, define the company’s activities (and those it outsources), configure its resources and skills, position itself in the market, in order to make a profit. More frequently, it is the notion of a business model (Box 1.3) that is now being used. This concept is more complete, as it incorporates the notion of value architecture (Lehmann-Ortega 2008).

Thus, the main lever for strategic innovation is the introduction of a new business model, the evolution of an existing one or part of an existing one (Lehmann-Ortega 2008). For business model innovation to be disruptive, it must lead the company to break with the CSFs in its sector. But breaking with the sectoral rules of the game is not a matter of course. This requires a certain method specified by Kim and Mauborgne (1999). In particular, they show how much the substitute products approach creates value. Based on the case of Home Depot, they show that this company has developed a breakthrough strategy by understanding both why some people recruit professionals to do work (because of their expertise), but also why they can do without them, and why some people go to the hardware store. It is the combination of these analyses that has allowed the company to make a new value proposition: to provide professional entrepreneurial expertise at prices lower than the hardware store. The authors show, however, that adding CSFs is not enough to create a competitive sphere, it is also necessary to eliminate and reduce traditional CSFs.

In his article on value migration, Slywotzky (1996) provides further insight. He shows that, in a hypercompetitive context, it is necessary to know how to migrate from superficial needs to a deeper understanding of customers’ needs. To this end, more than the need expressed by the customer, what counts is “the interpretation of this need by the company, to access the customer’s complex system of priorities¹²” (Saïas and Métais 2001, p. 206). Listening (and listening again) to the environment then becomes fundamental to understanding the customer.

After asking the question of “how” to break with the rules of the game, the question remains: “who” is best able to develop a breakthrough strategy? Overall, it appears that it is mainly initiated by start-ups, which have a strong interest in destabilizing the historical players. These are often digital companies that have developed a platform business model (see Chapter 2 for more details), such as Uber, Airbnb, etc. Indeed, there is a certain advantage for new entrants in the ability to carry out such strategies.

The entrepreneurial qualities and ambidextrous nature of breakthrough strategies, on the other hand, raise questions about the ability of established companies to carry out these breakthroughs. This leads to numerous changes for market players.

First, they involve changes for consumers themselves, who do not always assess the benefits of a new product or service resulting from this strategy. The latter must break with their consumption habits and this represents transfer costs. In addition, they involve changes for existing companies, and their network of historical partners, in terms of activity, resources, structure, etc.

Beyond these difficulties for external stakeholders, there are internal barriers. These are due to the company’s cultural inertia, its fear of cannibalizing its offer, or destroying previously developed skills (Le Roy and Yami 2007; Moingeon and Lehmann-Ortega 2009).

Also, according to Markides (2009), large existing enterprises cannot and should not want to break with the rules of the game and in particular develop radically new markets themselves, for three reasons.

First, the innovation process that the breakthrough implies is very difficult to develop in existing companies. Second, these strategies destroy their historical skills and require significant investment. And third, they do not have the entrepreneurial skills to do so. For these three reasons, it would seem logical for large enterprises to leave this to early entrants, who sometimes end up disappearing. Indeed, the most important thing is not necessarily to initiate this strategy, but to be a “consolidator” that contributes to the development of innovation on the mass market:

“Thus, even if pioneers are chronologically the first to enter a market, consolidators are the true first entrants. They are the first on the market that really matter: the mass market.” (Markides 2009, p. 181)

Based on Markides’ (2009) comments, we understand that it would be better to let existing companies focus on exploitation rather than exploration¹³.

However, the breakthrough can also come from existing companies or so-called mature firms (Baden-Fuller and Stopford 1994), even if the literature insists on the breakthrough strategies of challengers and pursuers (Roy 2005). In this case, it is based on the ability of companies to regenerate themselves, as illustrated by the case of Hotpoint in the household appliance sector or Cook in the steel industry (Baden-Fuller and Stopford 1994). In addition, this ability can be expressed when these mature companies are in a crisis situation. For example, Nintendo, a pioneer in its sector, decided in 2005, with the launch of the Wii game console, to break with the rules of the video game sector, in response to the strong development of its competitors Sony and Microsoft (Aurégan and Tellier 2009). Indeed, in a sector characterized by CSFs linked to the existence of a universe, and technological and graphic performance, Wii offers a new gameplay based on high interactivity (the Wii controller) at the expense of lower technological and graphic performance. While this value proposition does not satisfy the traditional user, the hardcore gamer, it allows Nintendo to enter an untapped strategic space (all members of the family) with enormous growth potential. Finally, it also happens that the breakthrough strategy is led by a leader in the sector. This is the case with Pathé’s multiplex cinema development strategy, which broke with the rules of the game in the sector and helped to change consumer behavior (Roy 2005). Faced with these findings, the question now arises: what about existing, mature or even leading SMEs in their sector? Section 1.4.3 provides some answers.

1.4.3. Strategic innovation: what about SMEs?

Through this research, we understand that it is difficult for an existing large enterprise to break with the sectoral rules of the game. And SMEs are no better equipped a priori to disrupt the established order. Indeed, in their case, “in the face of peril or an unforeseen situation, the spontaneous reaction consists of ‘clinging onto something’ and sticking to what they know best and know how to do” (Torrès and Gueguen 2008, p. 104) ¹⁴. As a result, there is a high risk, according to the law of proxemics, that the SME manager will avoid changing strategy. This may even discourage them from innovating in general (St-Pierre and El Fadil 2017). What are the main obstacles? How would it be difficult for an SME to transform its environment? There is little academic work explicitly devoted to the study of breakthrough strategies in SMEs. Thus, before detailing the specific obstacles to SMEs, it is important to understand what can explain the failure of a breakthrough strategy.

Unlike the majority of cases studied, Detchenique and Joffre (2012) study a case of a failed breakthrough strategy, which highlights proven obstacles. Based on the case of Val de Vire, a French company in the cider sector, their analysis highlights the various obstacles to the strategic regeneration of a company and, in doing so, to the regeneration of a sector in crisis. For the authors, the obstacles to achieving breakthrough come first and foremost from the company itself:

• – cognitive barriers: linked to the difficulty of challenging beliefs that are firmly anchored in the company’s paradigm;
• – organizational barriers: linked to the difficulty of challenging established practices, habits, expertise, in short, the company’s routines. This may include, for example, the resistance of salespeople with strong habits.

However, the obstacles can also come from the outside: the strategic group to which the company studied belongs to shares a common vision with which it is difficult to break away from. Detchenique and Joffre (2012) underline in this case, the company’s difficulty in distancing itself from regional traditions.

These obstacles to regeneration are crucial when it comes to SMEs. Indeed, from a cognitive point of view, it seems more difficult to question beliefs, especially if the beliefs have been formed on past experiences and successes, especially those of the company manager. At organizational level, it is the questioning of the way of doing things, which is part of routine that can impede change. In the specific context of SMEs, the manager’s leadership is essential to overcoming these obstacles (see section 3.2.1). At external level, the specific issue for SMEs is their ability to impose a new vision on the company’s entire value chain or on all the players in its ecosystem.

In contrast to the approach presented so far, Dumoulin and Simon (2005) take the opposite view by immediately considering how SMEs constitute a context conducive to the breakthrough strategy. This is despite the reproducibility of this type of strategy being ultimately limited. These researchers build on the four main strengths considered by Le Roy and Yami (2004). The first asset of SMEs with regard to breakthrough strategies is the presence of a manager who creates the permanent link between strategy and operations. This would make it possible to overcome the organizational obstacles observed by Detchenique and Joffre (2012). The second advantage is the low formalization of the structure, which avoids the rigidities and inertia that characterize large companies. The third asset is the ability to react quickly to the SME’s environment and the fourth is SME’s good knowledge of its own resources and skills. SMEs, often specialized, have a high level of expertise. Based on their study of a company that has led a breakthrough strategy, largely based on intuition, Dumoulin and Simon (2005) suggest another possible asset: reputation, which has played an important role in the strategy’s success.

To summarize this section, we wish to note that, if the breakthrough strategies are a priori more favorable to start-ups, SMEs nevertheless benefit from significant advantages on the condition that they are exploited and that they do not allow themselves to be dominated by the actors in their environment.

Interview with Emmanuel Exbrayat, CEO of Perlimpinpin Designers Limited.

Serial entrepreneur since his teenage years, first working in nightlife (dancing, live shows), then working in the trade of musical products, but also in corporate communication, Emmanuel Exbrayat, self-taught and passionate about music, created his latest company in London in 2013. Perlimpinpin Limited uses technologies from the video game, entertainment and amusement park industries to create immersive experiences in real, permanent or ephemeral spaces. The company is creative in three ways. First, it thinks about the new interactions made possible with technology (touch surfaces, contactless technology, augmented reality, etc.). Second, it creates educational content on a wide variety of themes (museum visits, selective sorting) in order to promote learning by visitors, children, etc. And third, it creates the music that supports events. Since 2012, the founder has been developing a major parallel event, The Five Tribes Experience. It is an immersive show where the spectator is the privileged witness of a futuristic and creative adventure combining theater, music, writing, games and new technologies. This adventure addresses topics characteristic of some of the changes facing our economy: “How can we (re)think about living together? How can we give a more central role to individual values and education? And how can we use the arts as a source of increased awareness?” explains Emmanuel Exbrayat on the website dedicated to the show.

This company, which is part of the cultural and creative industries, is developing in London, while the founder comes from a small town in a French province, and “no one in my family has ever gone beyond the borders of France”.

Why then did you go to the other side of the Atlantic to create it?

Emmanuel Exbrayat – The Perlimpinpin Designers project and the show The Five Tribes Experience in London are the result of my training as an entrepreneur, but also of how I am as a creative and artistic person. Let me explain. When I opened my first music store in the 1990s, I quickly realized that the place was important – something I learned on my own without a university education. Although the store was quite successful, the city was far too small for this type of activity. So, when I opened my second store, I moved to Montélimar, a more dynamic small French city with more development potential. I also created a communication agency focused on the development of educational tools based on video game technology. With my employees, we then developed real high level technological expertise. However, we did not know how to “share” our “know-how” with prospects. We would have had to go to a larger city to attract new customers through the network.

At the time, Lyon was the city that scared me a little. It was the representation of what “The City” was, in capital letters for a person like me, who came from a small town. Then, the 2008 crisis gradually overcame our activity; I went bankrupt in 2010 following a suspension of payments by a major customer. I lost a lot. It was my former employees who came back to find me to develop a new activity and, there, I settled in Lyon. A friend of mine then invited me to work with him on an important project with BNP Paribas and Roland Garros; and it worked. Then Citroën called us up right away, followed by others and so on. In six months, everything worked out impressively. My first experiences in the performing arts help me to develop cutting-edge technological products dedicated to events. That said, the professional hit I had taken as an entrepreneur of the communications agency had left a particular impression on me; and I wanted and, I would even say, needed to create by and for myself. Indeed, I realized that surrounding myself with artists to develop a project for one of my clients did not make me an artist, but an entrepreneur. I needed recognition, not because of an economic success with a good turnover or employee satisfaction, but because of my imagination and my ability to implement them. So I started creating The Five Tribes Experience show.

And one morning, I woke up and said to myself: “It’s not in Lyon that we should create it, it’s too innovative, it’s too big, I have to go to London.” I didn’t really know the city, and then I regretted not having been able to meet people of a certain social status, to go abroad, not to have learned languages. London was obvious to me. I wanted to learn, to become someone else. I then created a new business in London: Perlimpinpin Designers. It consisted of creating immersive learning paths based on new technologies, with an underlying message linked to my values (education, culture, etc.), which I had missed in short. Given my background, my clients were still organizations in France, but I was thinking about the projects from London. At that time, I was a course designer, with a team of technicians, illustrators and curriculum developers from all over the world, based in London and France.

And, surprisingly, I realized that, for my clients, I had become a “star” against my will, but also an artist, simply because I was now based in London. Goodbye to the status of a small provincial technician! Indeed, at the time of my last activity in Lyon, my clients were event and communication agencies in Paris. These agencies called companies in the province to respond to requests from their own clients. However, when I went to London for the Paris working meetings, my status changed. In itself, I was the same, but I had become “the London business that came especially for them”. So I understood that there was an aura around the city of London. It also allowed me to appreciate that, to develop business with France in the event industry, knowing that everything is happening in Paris, it was better to be either in New York or London, to play on the image. On the other hand, the other side of the coin was new tensions with some clients, who were no longer the “stars” during the meetings, and this was not beneficial to our collaboration.

The Five Tribes Experience is a Perlimpinpin Designers project, but on your own account. What did France and London bring to the show?

France and London, in fact, are complementary. I have devised a strategy for my company. I work with French clients on creative learning path projects. I am learning a lot of useful things for my show. Then, in London, I create the show; I am an artist and no longer an entrepreneur. Beyond that, I must point out that the aura of the city of London mentioned above is not just about the name when I am in meetings with my clients. I see that there is a certain energy. I live in East London, where many artists live. Everywhere, there are people who create. Creation is their daily life. You go to buy your loaf of bread, and you meet a writer, a musician, a professional dancer, etc. In my performance, I feel like I’m in Charles Aznavour’s song La Bohème. East London is my Parisian Montmartre. All cafés are used as coworking areas. Also, any freelancer can arrive with their computer, connect to wifi, work and create. I didn’t find that anywhere else. The other spaces I know are rather cold, and, despite everything, very business-oriented. France is very square, things are very organized, the spaces are clearly delimited. Here, I feel of a different mind. As a result, this creative energy is present in my team.

Before, I was the driving force behind the project; but I paddled alone in an ocean where people didn’t understand what I was doing. Today, I am in the middle of an ocean with a real competition between boats. And some are very far away, I can barely see them, but they pull me out. So there is more competition here in London, but there is a significant market, with customers who have experience in shows and very creative projects. In short, it helped me to sharpen the project. This has been very useful, because the product does not exist. It is totally new: it combines a show, an immersive experience for the viewer, as well as a book, a game and a community on social networks.

What interests me in London is that all our ideas, even the craziest ones, can be proposed. There are people working on converging topics (shows, experiences, etc.). We see a lot of things emerging everywhere. There is a real excitement that can be found here. London is 70% foreigners, multiculturalism is a real strength. Rent is expensive, however. So there is a selection in short in relation to that. You have to want to stay here to set up projects.

In conclusion, do you consider the city, London, to be a strategic asset for your project?

Yes, for several reasons and first of all, because there is an energy. Then you can find all the skills you need. Finally, there are many projects being created in all fields; there is emulation. I have the impression that, in these big cities, the engine runs faster, so people are attracted by the same pace, and that suits me well.