“We are a family-owned company specializing in measuring the quality of service telecommunications,” says Olivier Brunot, president of Directique. “We have more than 30 years of experience and are identified as a major and independent player of network quality.”
In 1982, the father of the president founded the company as a consultancy that helps businesses to make optimum use of Minitel, the French predecessor of the Internet. A telecommunications engineer by profession, the founder eventually specialized in developing innovative, patent-covered solutions that were the precursors of e-mail or website editing software. He also carried out IT quality and process improvement projects for major French companies.
When in 1993 the first GSM networks were established, Directique landed a contract with the French telecommunications company SFR, the only competitor of France Telecom at the time
“The mobile communications market was new for all parties involved, and measuring and control solutions were in high demand,” explains Mr. Brunot, who has run the company since 1996.
“There was a variety of approaches to measuring, and we pursued the customer-oriented approach and won other operators such as Orange and Bouygues Telecom. Moreover, we won the competition by the market regulation authorities on the protocol of quality and service measuring, the starting point for our success story. With this expertise, we have developed the customer quality perspectives to invest in new industries concerned with improving the quality of service for their customers.”
Today, Directique is well established with five agencies across France, a subsidiary in Morocco and two companies acquired last year specializing in testing and checking the building and optimization of new networks. The three companies have a combined staff of 230 and achieve a turnover of 17 million EUR, nine million of which is generated by Directique.
“We provide measuring and testing services for all types of fixed and mobile digital voice and data exchange including e-commerce, radio or broadcasting,” underlines the president. “Our customers are telecom players (operators, manufacturers, operators, suppliers, integrators and regulators), service providers and their users, mainly corporations like GDF or SNCF.”
Customer satisfaction is the key to success, and with its expertise in testing quality from the client’s point of view, Directique is a proven partner for ensuring just that.
Future plans call for further expanding services and export activities. Moreover, Directique will fully integrate the two companies to achieve the critical size which is vital in view of the ongoing concentration in the European communications market.