Emery [00:00:01]:
It's the JITA interviews, the premier Global IT solution podcast, where we talk to the CEOs and business leaders who are growing their companies through global partnerships. I'm your host, Emery Giosetz, the executive director of the Global IT Alliance. Hello, and welcome to the Jita podcast. I'm really excited today to have the my next guest join us. I had the pleasure of meeting Matilda back in Las Vegas where everyone should meet for the first time always, and hear her journey and her career and how we got here. And the second I met her and heard all this, I said, we should do a podcast together. So I'm terrible at French except for the food. The food, I can manage.
Emery [00:00:43]:
But French language other than the food, not so great. So I'll ask Matilda to properly introduce herself so that I don't embarrass myself. So welcome to the podcast.
Mathilde [00:00:54]:
Thank you. Thank you, Amari. And I'm sure you're good about this French food and the French wine as well. Right? Not just the food.
Emery [00:01:00]:
Absolutely. True. You you you got me for sure.
Mathilde [00:01:03]:
Okay. Very good. So I'm Matin Ludo, and, I joined bachelor back in April, and I'm the VP for the French activities.
Emery [00:01:13]:
That's great. That's great. And how long have we been in this role, Mathilde?
Mathilde [00:01:17]:
So I've been in the role, like, I don't count. 6 months, 7 months. I don't count anymore.
Emery [00:01:23]:
Sometimes the month seems like years when it's big enough. Right?
Mathilde [00:01:26]:
It's more than a year because I I have to admit I have been super well welcome, you know, and integrated within the group.
Emery [00:01:33]:
Right. Right. And then you add all the travel on top of that. It's it's it's a task. You know, you've been in leadership roles before. And, can you talk to me a little bit about how this one might be different from what you've done up until, this point in your career?
Mathilde [00:01:48]:
Is it really different? You know? I wonder. You know, there there's one thing that matters for me a lot, which is the position as a leader. Right? I've been a leader for many years now in very different environment. I have been a leader on the vendor side, on the distribution side, and now on the reseller side. At the end of the day, what matters is what drives you as a leader. Recently, I've learned something. Being a manager is a function. Being a leader is a state of mind.
Mathilde [00:02:24]:
Of course, you bring your competencies in the job, and I have been building my competencies for more than 30 years in the IT ecosystem.
Emery [00:02:33]:
Sure.
Mathilde [00:02:33]:
And not just 30 years in the IT ecosystem, but in the channel. So I know the channel in and out. So I think I have a lot of automatisms, right, as part of my role. But what drives me and for not for me, it's not different from what I've done before is that my state of of mind is driven by what I profoundly believe in. And the number one is the team power. Building a team, being collaborative, building some cohesion, right, in the group. The second thing is and maybe we'll have the opportunity to talk a little bit about it, the diversity, the richness of the diversity in the group you're you're building. Really to create not just the operation, but the mission and the vision that you're gonna create, right, to accelerate the growth.
Mathilde [00:03:26]:
And then the last thing is maybe the respect. Creating an environment with the highest level of respect. So if you're asking me what drives you as a leader, that's what drives me honestly, constantly, and day after day.
Emery [00:03:41]:
I love that. I love that answer because I know, you know, when you talk about cohesion, and and I like to kinda take off on that for a second. You're inheriting an organization that has a lot of acquisitions over the past couple of years, a Pixit and a couple of others, NMAC, etcetera. So talk to me a little bit about that part of it. How do you how do you bring those minds and and hearts together?
Mathilde [00:04:05]:
It's a challenge, of course. Yeah. It's a challenge because they have different, dynamic, different competencies. But it's a great challenge because at the end of the day, they're quite unique companies. And, the way we are working together already with the managing directors of the entities is looking at what makes them unique, what is their value proposition that is can be quite seen as a synergy if we bring them together. And without telling you about it because it's we are building it as we speak. We're creating, an initiative which consists in creating the one portfolio approach. And it's about identifying what these company do the best on the market and how can we leverage their value proposition using the entire sales force that we have within our French teams? So it's really regrouping the sales engagement towards that one portfolio approach.
Mathilde [00:05:17]:
And it's a great way to create that sentiment of working together and working as a team. So it's it's one of the initiative that we're working on.
Emery [00:05:27]:
Right. Right. Right. You know, touching on the diversity aspect, you know, traditionally, our our industry is very male, centric, male led. And you've been in the industry now, you you mentioned 30 years. Obviously, you started when you were 10. But if you look at that level of diversity in in being a female in this industry, can you talk a little bit about that journey? What have you seen? What have you faced? And and what do you see today from an evolution of this?
Mathilde [00:05:56]:
I can speak for hours about that. That things have changed a lot, definitely. Things have changed a lot because it's much easier for me, I have to admit, being a a woman, right, to be a leader and assuming that I can be a leader while being a woman. It was not that obvious when I started. It was very male dominated, much much more than today. Nevertheless, especially on the reseller side, I think the vendors have progressed a lot on that. On the reseller side, it's very often that, when I am in an event, there are just a few ladies and not too many, and and a lot of men. Right? Not too many years.
Mathilde [00:06:38]:
But I have the immense pleasure and honor to have within my team 2 other ladies who are super strong leaders. Right? So in terms of the parity engagement, I'm very lucky that it's already in place within Beshia. Now having said that, I think we need to work on it still today because it's not because you have a few great leaders already in place that you have a lot of leaders ready to, you know, step in in our shoes, in our organization. And it's a constant, effort and constant, attention to that matter. Unfortunately, when we look at the number of young women joining scientific studies after the age of 18, after after high school, that percentage percentage is not evolving. That it's even decreasing. It has increased over the last 10 years. It's now decreasing again.
Mathilde [00:07:40]:
So the effort and the attention should start at the super young age. So if I had one thing, one call out today, that would be for all the men and women who are listening to me. As a parent, please please engage your your little girls, right, in at least a conversation telling them about how great our ecosystem is, how great our industry is, and they can have a great carrier, right, in that ecosystem. It's really making sure that they can have a vision the sooner they are, right, that that the possibilities are there. And then, of course, it's paying attention to the classical things. Like, we know that women have a tendency to think that they're not capable instead of thinking that they can do new things that they have never experienced before.
Emery [00:08:31]:
Right.
Mathilde [00:08:31]:
And we, as leader, we need to encourage them to tell them that they can get out of their comfort zone and be super productive and super efficient and super competent. So there's a lot of self confidence to be, driven, within the women community, I think, to encourage and to take bigger and bigger roles.
Emery [00:08:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I've seen it myself. You know, personally, I have a daughter that entered the industry 3 years ago. She loves it. She's thriving in it. I'm working on my 6 year old already. Both her parents are in the IT industry, so I don't think she has much of a choice.
Emery [00:09:05]:
But when you look at that, I I love what you said about bringing them up early because everyone wants a succession plan. Right? You want someone who you feel like can take your place. But the other aspect of it is and I'm sure you've seen this. When you identify someone with that particular spark, and especially if it's a leadership spark or someone who has the capabilities to lead people, maybe they're doing it in local meetings where they live and things like that. Honing in on that, I think, is so important and then weaving them into our industry. Would would you agree?
Mathilde [00:09:35]:
I agree. And there is one last element, which is I don't think we are, at a time where the the amount of time we spent with our families is well balanced. Women spend more time taking care about their families, and that's okay. It's okay. It's just that if I had one message to all the women, you can raise a family. You can have a family and still, you know, take on some some great leadership roles.
Emery [00:10:01]:
For sure.
Mathilde [00:10:02]:
It it takes some organization, of course. Right? But that is possible. Absolutely.
Emery [00:10:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of organization, we literally sit down 2 months ahead, map the calendar for when my wife's traveling, when I'm traveling, and make sure that we're able to do that because she should, be lifted up the same as as I'm fortunate to do. So agree wholeheartedly. Let's talk a little bit about our industry and and how you see the channel evolving. For years years years, we've been saying the channel needs to move away from pure product plays. Right? We we no longer wanna just ship product. We want solutions, and we wanna hone in on those solutions.
Emery [00:10:38]:
The acquisitions we mentioned earlier, with NMAC and and, Pixit really do set Bachelors, France to a different place when it comes to services. Can you talk a little bit about those services and solution and kinda what the plan is around expanding that?
Mathilde [00:10:53]:
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the services because I think we are in an industry that is moving fast. Right? Time go flies and and innovations and changes, which are driven by the vendors. Right? Honestly, I mean, they're driving the strategy, the technology strategy. That the the vendors have been forcing, the resellers and integrators, to evolve a lot over the last few years. They have been warning us. They have been telling us for years that we should not just count on the margin of reselling product. They have been warning us that they were expecting that we build competencies, that we build services, because it's all about the value creation that we bring to the end customer.
Mathilde [00:11:39]:
Right? So I think we are still there, and we need to accelerate that big time. Because we have seen the pressure on the margin for sure. Mhmm. But we are also seeing the the need in a very competitive environment to create that value proposition. And that goes with service creation. That goes with being able to be with the customer responding to their needs, responding to their pain with gains that we can bring to them, and that goes through the services. You know, presale services, you know, post sales.
Emery [00:12:13]:
Mhmm.
Mathilde [00:12:13]:
And with the cycle of the consumption and usage model that the vendors have been creating, we need to be able to accompany the the customers through their entire, you know, cycle of product and solution consumption journey. And, honestly, this is one of the area where I believe we still need to make significant progress.
Emery [00:12:37]:
Sure.
Mathilde [00:12:37]:
So I am all in into it. Services is one of the key topic on the development as part of our strategy.
Emery [00:12:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's always been a little bit of a challenge for the channel because, you know, you still have to pay the bills and your butter is your bread is typically buttered by the product. And I think that inherently when you look at the sales organizations, the sales reps specifically, those people who are down in the in the grassroots effort, shifting their focus sometimes from product and selling the laptop into the services is a difficult journey. How do you manage that within your organization? Are there separate sales teams for services versus product? Do you foresee that? Do you foresee training the whole organization to sell more services? Talk to me a little bit about that, if you will.
Mathilde [00:13:27]:
Well, first of all, not all the entities are doing the exact same job today. They're not having the exact same value proposition. So I would say there are maybe some entities who are a bit more, developed in their, ability to approach a customer through their subscription model usage model, you know, cycle. Nevertheless, let's not forget that, there's still a a a lot of potential for the product sense. Right? So I think we have to manage both.
Emery [00:13:55]:
Mhmm. We
Mathilde [00:13:56]:
have to manage the abilities to set product with some great services. If I think about impact, for example, with great operational services, and that is needed. Right? But you see, we're talking about services as well even when it's about selling products.
Emery [00:14:07]:
Sure.
Mathilde [00:14:08]:
Because you need the ability to respond to the customer needs, and that may come from excellent logistics, from excellence, you know, preparation of a product, down to being able to deliver on time to the exact address, you know, to the right person and so on. So that is a service portion for me. And then, developing the the services, through the sales cycle motion, the the usage motion requires some some an attention to building the competencies, for sure. And, again, all the entities are not equal there. I think if I think about, CommSoft, they are really good into this. They have been it's it's a long process of competencies development that they have been building. And I think it's about making sure you identify people, and you really target the competency builder within these organization. I am a believer that you need to build some expertise, and dedicated expertise within your organization, and that expertise can come and complement your general sales force.
Emery [00:15:09]:
Sure.
Mathilde [00:15:09]:
Right? And that's what in most cases, this is what we are doing.
Emery [00:15:14]:
Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense. Earlier, you mentioned that, you know, the OEMs and and the industry was being pushed by the OEMs. And in particular with Microsoft, you know, you mentioned CommSoft. And if you look at the recent changes Microsoft has made, they clearly no longer wanna pay anyone on licensing. Right? So the evolution of your services is really the the sweet spot for that. And I know CommSoft been doing that for years. So what we've talked about so far is is what you're doing internally, what what is doing, in France, and how to best prepare your salespeople and customers going forward.
Emery [00:15:43]:
How is the greater, economic situation in Europe and specifically France? Is it where do you see it going, when it comes to IT and and solutions? Can you tie those 2 together?
Mathilde [00:15:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's a good question. We have gone through, let's say, now maybe 18 month with the IT industry being in decline in Europe. And if I look back, let's say, a year ago, everybody was predicting that 2024 would be back to growth, and this is not what we had experienced. So it's very difficult to predict the future. Mhmm. Nevertheless, I'm in nature always positive.
Mathilde [00:16:23]:
I believe in cycles. The economical cycles that we have seen are shorter and shorter. So I would be very surprised that we see a decline again next year, but it doesn't mean that we are gonna be foreseeing an extremely high growth.
Emery [00:16:36]:
Mhmm.
Mathilde [00:16:37]:
The growth is gonna be carried by some innovation. Everybody is talking about AI. Everybody is talking about, on the PC side, the client side, right, the end of the Windows cert and support. But we are seeing, these two items starting super slow. So, it may be a great thing for tomorrow because it we know that it's gonna be coming. But the way we take it is that is that, let's say, even if our prediction are wrong by 4 to 5 points. Right? We're predicting 5% growth, and maybe it's gonna be flat or slightly below. Right? That should never prevent us from designing a vision and acting for that vision and pushing the company to transform.
Mathilde [00:17:22]:
We cannot wait, you know, for the growth to be back because otherwise, we would be doing nothing.
Emery [00:17:27]:
Right.
Mathilde [00:17:28]:
So our mission and our vision, we talked about it. They were being services is one thing. This is absolutely key. Right? So building the competencies with specialized, workforce still, and I'm coming back on my point earlier on, developing the competencies within our general Salesforce because they need to know how to pitch the introduced introducering message to their customers, and they need to still give, give the the right messages to the customers. So services development. Portfolio development as well. Because if you look at our portfolio in France, we're super good now on the side of security, thanks to the acquisition of Ipixie. They are doing also some infrastructure, but I think there is room to really strengthen the infrastructure dimension
Emery [00:18:15]:
Mhmm.
Mathilde [00:18:15]:
Which is a very small portion of our total portfolio today, and making sure that we can have, you know, that that that great offering to our customers. Building competencies, it's one thing, and making sure that we also have a great regional coverage within the French territory.
Emery [00:18:33]:
Mhmm.
Mathilde [00:18:33]:
So regardless of whether the market tomorrow is gonna be 4% growth or 6% or flat. Right? That's a motion we are in. It makes a lot of sense, and we are driving through it.
Emery [00:18:45]:
Sure. Sure. And it's interesting because when you look at it, changing the customer's perspective on who Beshtla is is equally important. Traditionally, they might say, oh, they're the, you know, the company that can get me a laptop as opposed to, no. They can help me with my infrastructure. They can broaden out what's coming. I recently had the pleasure of presenting to a group of CIOs, and we asked the AI question. And the way I frame the question is how many of you are encountering AI challenges or today in your day to day? And no hands went up because it's not there yet, and it's not coming.
Emery [00:19:18]:
And I think we might have overprepared for it, and now it's not there. Do you have perspective on that?
Mathilde [00:19:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We are seeing the AI, market development within the CSPs, the cloud, you know, service providers, for sure. And this is what everyone does thing is, that they have been investing significantly within their infrastructure. And what we are seeing on our side is, some of the biggest companies starting to do tests and pox. Right? Not knowing exactly where they're gonna go. They they know they need to go there, but they are the taste testing phase.
Emery [00:19:54]:
Mhmm.
Mathilde [00:19:55]:
And it looks like as among the industry, those who are going the fastest are the banks and the insurance.
Emery [00:20:01]:
Right.
Mathilde [00:20:02]:
They they seem to be, you know, investing, heavily on that. But no doubt this is gonna come. No doubt we need to be ready for that.
Emery [00:20:11]:
Sure.
Mathilde [00:20:12]:
I remember a few years ago, I I was talking to someone who was telling me, oh, but you don't don't met. You know, you should not be looking at the cloud. Right? Cloud is only 4% of our business. Wow. You know, 4 years after, it was more than 25% of the company I'm talking about. Right? So Sure. Should never think of things are not gonna be there because it's more today. It's more today, but the potential is still there.
Mathilde [00:20:39]:
Yes. Indeed. Maybe we have a little bit overcommunicated about the potential and the benefits of, pushing the AI. But at the same time, I don't think we're fully ready. So there's a lot of things we need to do to make sure that, we, again, create value for our customers.
Emery [00:20:59]:
Absolutely. And, you know, to to harp on something you said that I think is interesting is when you talk to some companies about the concerns about AI, they're usually around security. And yet the 2 industries that are moving quickly, right, are bank and and, you know, health care and and insurance. Well, great. But, wow, if there's a security problem with a bank, you know, that that's massive. So the fact that the leap is be is being taken by those markets is really interesting.
Mathilde [00:21:26]:
Mhmm. Absolutely.
Emery [00:21:27]:
So I was excited, to to talk about a couple of other things with you that are not necessarily IT. Because like I've said before, IT is IT, but we all have, fortunately, lives around that. So I've got 2 questions for you. One of them is, what are you doing personally? Do you have any good trips coming up? Do you have any kind of family events coming up that that you wanna share?
Mathilde [00:21:49]:
I have world projects. I love to go to, maybe Vietnam or Laos with my kids. Nice. The only thing is they're big boys now. So whenever you have a project like that, you have to bring their girlfriends as well. So, it's a different project.
Emery [00:22:06]:
It becomes bigger.
Mathilde [00:22:08]:
It could be a great project. I would love to go to, these countries with them. And don't ask me why Vietnam or Laos. I just feel attracted to these countries. I've been there once. The people were lovely. The kids talking about the food, even better than fresh food. It was absolutely marvelous and great, things to be seen there.
Mathilde [00:22:25]:
You know, nature, visits, cultural visits.
Emery [00:22:28]:
Yeah.
Mathilde [00:22:29]:
I think that could be a a great a great vacation.
Emery [00:22:32]:
Well, that's wonderful. I mean, even if you gotta bring the girlfriends, girlfriends, it it's a sacrifice well worth it, I believe. Let's hope they don't eat a lot. So my favorite story that we shared when we, first met was one around one of my favorite sports, which is hockey. And you shared with me this incredible story. So if you wouldn't mind, kind of re recapping that story on your affinity for hockey, when it started, and how it resulted in what it resulted in.
Mathilde [00:22:59]:
That can be a long story. But, yes, my I had a passion when I was young. It was ice hockey. First of all, I, you know, I was living on the sea resort, you know, on the French coast. So you can imagine that ice hockey for a little year, in when was that? Their late seventies, right, was not the most common thing. But I was super determined, that, I would play high hockey one day, and the town I was in, decided to build an ice, ice rink. So, and the town of Borr, where I was living organized, the possibility to have interviews with the head of the sport of the town hall. And I decided I would, take the interview, not telling how old I was.
Mathilde [00:23:44]:
You know, you're just, you know, a piece of paper, and you put your name, and then you have the interview.
Emery [00:23:49]:
Right.
Mathilde [00:23:49]:
I got the interview, and the guy was extremely surprised to see a little girl. I was maybe 9 year old, like, 9 or 10 year old. And, I was there to say, you know, I I asked the guy, you just need to answer one one question. You're gonna be opening a ring. Is there gonna be a a woman, team playing ice hockey? And the guy started to laugh and laugh. You know? He cannot take me seriously. And I was super touched. And I said to myself this day, he doesn't know that there will be a woman ice hockey team in that town later on.
Mathilde [00:24:25]:
It took 4 years for the ring to be built. So at the age of 14, about 14, 13, 14, I was there the when when it opened, right, the day in 1, with my ice, with my ice hockey skates. Right? Not new skating. My ice hockey skates.
Emery [00:24:42]:
Yeah.
Mathilde [00:24:42]:
And then, you know, I knocked them to the association and said, I want to play a hockey and say, no way. It's forbidden for win for women. There, I found out. I didn't know that ladies were not allowed to play soccer. It was on the French Association, newspaper.
Emery [00:24:57]:
Right.
Mathilde [00:24:58]:
And I was shocked first. Right? And they said, you want to skate? You just do like the little girls. You do figure skating. So I said, okay. I'm gonna try. So I went on the ice. You do a few figures. And then after 10 minutes, I said, no.
Mathilde [00:25:11]:
No. No. No. No. Don't understand. I don't want to do that. I want to do ice hockey. And I came back, and they said no.
Mathilde [00:25:17]:
And I came back every day, every single day, to the point that someone saw me and said, okay. You can play a game, which is called ringgit. It's very similar to ice hockey, but for ladies. And if you find 9 other girls, then you can build a team. And then I had 8 girls, and I am a twin. And I said to my twin, you don't have a choice. You don't have a choice. You don't have a choice.
Mathilde [00:25:43]:
You don't have a choice. You don't have a choice. This is this is life or death for me. We want to do something different, and and she did. And we built the team. And then after, what we had to do, we sent the French association to court to have a right to play Isaac
Emery [00:26:03]:
Amazing.
Mathilde [00:26:04]:
As women. And we obtained the right in, 1988, and, that was a big victory. It was even announced on TV on the French TV, you know, on that day. And then, of course, we built, the national the 1st national team. So I was I was lucky to be the captain of that, first French national team. We are not good. We are not good at this. It was it was a victory for for women, of course, we were not alone.
Mathilde [00:26:32]:
There were a lot of people supporting us. But, then we were not good because, the funny thing is once we played against Finland, and we lost 2820.
Emery [00:26:45]:
Wow. Wow.
Mathilde [00:26:46]:
But it's about determination. There's only one thing to remember about all of it. And if I had one message to give to everyone, men, women, everyone, always be determined and work hard. Because the day after we lost 28 to 0, we were working hard on the ice. So and try. Try. Make mistakes and try. Work hard and be determined.
Emery [00:27:12]:
Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that story. Like I said to you when we met, you know, those who watch our and listen to our podcast, it's typically about IT. So I guarantee no one thought that they'd be meeting the person who was responsible for the fact that France has a female hockey team in the Olympics and the league and everything else. So I'm sure there are so many young ladies that are eternally grateful for what you did and your determination. This has been an absolute pleasure, Matilda. I really appreciate you joining me today.
Emery [00:27:42]:
For more information, please see the JITA website, and have a great evening, Matilda. Talk to you soon.
Mathilde [00:27:47]:
Okay. Thank you, Emily. Thank you very much. Bye bye.
Emery [00:27:50]:
My pleasure. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to the Jita interviews. To find out more about the Global IT Alliance, please visit www.jita.com or follow us for more great interviews.