40’ and ‘SBF 120’). Few customers were expected to be interested in such a small asset
management market.
ARESE procured funding and developed a business model in spite of these threats.
Firstly, the small number of firms allowed ARESE to use a more elaborate methodology and
to spend more time obtaining in-depth information about French firms. After three years,
ARESE analysts had developed relationships with key managers from virtually all of the CAC
40 corporations, which allowed them to conduct long interviews and to obtain high quality
information about the firms’ social and environmental policies and programs. This
information constituted a key advantage on the SRI market since foreign competitors often
obtained only very little material or a 20 minutes phone interview. Secondly, the small market
size pushed ARESE toward the search for a methodology that used extra-financial
performance as leverage for financial performance. This orientation was interesting to many
mainstream investors beyond the small segment of religious or morally oriented investors. It
gave ARESE a competitive advantage. Thirdly, while many evaluation agencies or SRI
products were investor driven, the weak interest that the French financial market initially
showed for SRI gave ARESE more autonomy to make its own methodology and avoided
dependency on client needs:
“The customers never helped us and, paradoxically, that was one of our main strengths. In
other countries, customers were asking for specific studies, saying: “I want that, and I will
pay only for that”. In France, we proposed something and the customer had to adopt to it.”
(ARESE, Analyst B)
These three examples illustrate how the ARESE team progressively turned the two initial
threats into advantages during the transfer process.
Coupling
Coupling is the act of combination. Individuals engage in coupling when they combine a
foreign business practice with a widely accepted element in the host society. The purpose of
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