Working for Shared Development
You are here:HomeOur challengesWorking for Shared Development Our actionsEmployment/economic development Support for small and medium-sized businesses
Working for Shared Development
Support for small and medium-sized businesses
For thirty years now, we have been pursuing a policy in France that gives concrete support to the small and medium-sized companies located near our sites. In the last few years, we have been analyzing the effectiveness of this approach in an international context. Our goals are to promote job creation and to make skills available by supporting projects to start, expand or acquire businesses.
- Collaboration with authorities, specialist bodies and our industrial and institutional partners,
- Coherence with regional plans,
- Incorporation into the subsidiary's community development strategy.
Our commitment generally involves long-term initiatives. It aims at generating or protecting jobs in a wide range of sectors outside our own scope of activity.
Over the last ten years, TDR has helped 1,000 businesses and loaned out €60 million. Some 15,000 jobs have been created, saved or planned thanks to current loans.
We support small and medium-sized businesses through three mechanisms:
Financial support
Loan recipients are mainly entrepreneurs, businesses in operation for less than five years, acquirors and companies in the first year following a buy-out.Loans are unsecured and interest-free.
TDR's action is based on two principles: working in partnership with local bodies that provide support for new entrepreneurs, and picking up where banks leave off.
Export support
Through our operations in 130 countries, our sound knowledge of local players and our experience in the field, we help French SMEs expand into international markets. Over the last two years, TDR has supported the export efforts of almost 500 businesses.This support takes different forms:
- Brokering contacts and sharing information. To help SMEs prospect in export markets, our subsidiaries in those countries provide expertise and local contacts. Between 2007 and 2009, we facilitated 80 contacts for SMEs .
- Arranging commercial fact-finding missions, mostly in partnership with the national or regional bodies that promote international development for French companies. Between 2007 and 2009, almost 230 businesses took part in fact-finding missions supported by Total.
- Hosting student interns and international enterprise volunteers (VIE) on behalf of SMEs, to facilitate their prospecting efforts abroad. Between 2007 and 2009, our subsidiaries hosted nearly 170 student interns and international enterprise volunteers .
Technical support
We make our research and development potential available to project sponsors through the Centre d'Étude Technique Régional et d'Appui (CETRA).The support provided includes advice from experts of Total or partner companies. We can also provide SMEs with high-tech equipment and other technical resources that they cannot easily access. We helped 48 businesses in 2009.
The SME Pact
In April 2007, Total signed the French SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) Pact. This initiative was launched at the end of 2005 by OSEO, a public organization that supports SME innovation and growth, and the Comité Richelieu, a French association of innovative SMEs. Its purpose is to facilitate relations between major corporations and innovative SMEs, thereby promoting SME development.Total has also signed the International SME Pact, launched at the Group's head office on March 4, 2009. This new initiative is managed and overseen by the Comité Richelieu and federates major groups, SMEs and public authorities.
The initiative promotes international strategic mentoring programs by major exporting groups.
