Econocom - 2019 Universal registration document

02 group overview

45 years of intuition, daring and independence

Preamble

45 years of intuition, daring and independence

When Jean-Louis Bouchard created ECS in 1974, he deployed an economic model thereto unknown in the IT sector, in response to a customer request: leasing. The company began by renting IBM machines. Keen on preserving its independence, it quickly established partnerships with most of the other manufacturers, becoming their indispensable financing partner. This mix of intuition, daring and independence, which was at the origin of the creation of Econocom, is still part of From leasing to services, including distribution and telecommunications Econocom began to diversify its business lines in the 1990s, by buying the Belgian IT distribution leader, Asystel Belgium. At that time, Jean-Louis Bouchard had already understood the importance of the distribution channel, against the backdrop of declining mainframe sales and the explosion in personal computers. In 2000, Econocom was still playing on the element of surprise, being one of the first IT players to invest in telecoms, anticipating the coming IT convergence. 2013 was marked by the strengthening of the Group in terms of services: the acquisition of the service provider Osiatis allowed Econocom to become a leading digital services company. Agility through Satellites After acquiring Osiatis, the Group counted more than 8,000 employees. In order to maintain its agility despite having become a large group, Econocom invented in 2014 an unprecedented development model: the "Galaxy" with its innovative SMEs, all positioned in strategic areas (cybersecurity, cloud, mobility solutions, open source, etc.). The objective? To invent Econocom's future, in synergy with the Group's different activities, and in line with the uses and needs of users. the company's values today. It has always been at the heart of the company's decisions, as it has grown and diversified

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2019 annual report