The Globalisation of Management and Procurement for International Telecommunications Services: The Case of Large French Firms

The International telecommunications market is particularly interesting for two reasons. On the one hand, it was the first market to be “de facto” liberalised and was characterised by strong competition, powerful buyers and therefore important price decreases. On the other hand, it called for innovative behaviour from both suppliers and business customers in order to take into account this new international dimension. Now that both suppliers and large customers have experienced a sufficiently long learning process, it is time to analyse some outcomes of this process. Particularly, it is interesting to analyse the scope of the respective global, regional and national dimensions. From a survey among a sample of the largest French companies, we analyse the main features of the management and purchasing of international telecommunications services, the type of services used and their scope, the main suppliers and the expectations of customers. Finally, we conclude by discussing the diversity of the modes of internationalisation of large companies in relation to telecommunications and IT services.