Akka Technologies • Maurice Ricci

Maurice Ricci

Chief Executive Officer of Akka Technologies Founded in 1984, Akka Technologies is a European engineering and technology consulting company that assists service enterprises and industrial businesses throughout the lifecycle of their projects including R&D, which serves to reinforce industrialization. Today, Akka Technologies counts 11,000 employees in over 20 countries.

What have been the milestones for Technologies? Akka

Between 2010 and 2012, the company doubled in size with the integration of Aeroconseil in France and MBtech (Daimler Group) in Germany, two companies from the industry with a very high level of expertise, the first in aeronautics and the second in the automobile industry. With a strong presence in France and Germany, the two largest engineering markets in Europe, and our implantations in over 20 countries, we have the capacity to assist our clients in the most complex projects, most often transnational. Today, we aim to accelerate our growth by concentrating on the construction of a group worth over one billion euros.

Akka Technologies is a preferred partner of big name defense manufacturers and equipment suppliers like

Thales, Sagem, MBDA, EADS, DCNS,

Dassault Aviation, and Nexter.

In the defense sector, Akka Technologies is a preferred partner of big name defense manufacturers and equipment suppliers like Thales, Sagem, MBDA, EADS, DCNS, Dassault Aviation, Nexter, etc. Thanks to our expertise in mechanical and process engineering and on-board systems and industrial computing, we have contributed to important projects such as the A400M and the Rafale.

What are the services and competitive advantages that allow Akka Technologies to succeed in gaining the trust of industry leaders?

Our main competitive strength is our dedication to across the board services that provide a strong value added offer. We work on the entire lifecycle of a project, responding directly to the clients’ needs by proposing our services in consulting, Design Engineering Centers (DEC), and Software Design Center (SDC).

Another recent distinguishing factor is the integration of MBtech and Aeroconseil which strengthens the company’s offer by giving us a position of leadership in the automobile engineering and aeronautic sectors in Europe. By successfully handling transnational projects, we demonstrate our capacity to assist our clients wherever they are, in France, Europe, and the rest of the world.

Akka managed to gain the confidence of the industry leaders through our presence in every sector of the industrial activity and through the capitalization of our expertise. We offer our competencies in various sectors, a strategy known as cross fertilization. In this way, thanks to our flexible origins, Akka Technologies was able to gradually evolve the business model, build new competencies, learn the client’s business and adapt to changes.

As one of France’s fastest growing technological consulting and engineering service companies, what explains Akka’s international evolution?

The rising strength of Akka also follows the same logic, in line with our balance strategy; it relies upon the sector and client balance, technology balance, and geographic balance. Thus, thanks to our efficient policy of external and organic growth, we have enlarged our international presence and accelerated our development.

Our clients, international contractors, ask us to get involved in the same projects we have done for them in the past. We know their processes, their way of working, and so it is pretty natural that they consider we are the right partner to accompany them in putting into place production process, installing R&D engineering. This is what Daimler in China asks of us.

The presence of Akka is as strong in France as abroad. International operations have boosted the number of Akka personnel to more than 11,000 engineers, spread out mainly in Europe but also in North America and in China. We deploy in each country the totality of our offer, favoring the mobility of our collaborators and answering our clients’ needs with flexibility (offshore, nearshore).

How was Akka able to post a 50% increase in profit in 2012 despite the current economic downturn?

Defense activity is tightly linked to the state budget and the defense policy led by the government. The French defense procurement agency (DGA) drives the entirety of our army’s needs. The agency addresses the entirety of the big accounts and more recently those of the SME sector. However, the budget has gone down continuously. Furthermore, the transition to a professional army 20 years ago augmented the cost of maintenance of operational forces and reduced the amount of investment. The big manufacturers thus shifted toward exports in order to get rid of their dependence on the French state and to garner renewed growth. As in all sectors, defense also needs to modernize and provide itself with the latest systems. We often talk about defense in terms of capacity for military engagement, power of dissuasion, protection of territory, etc., but the defense sector is also focused on subjects such as the security of sensitive sites and the protection of data in order to fight industrial espionage and terrorist threats. These are very important issues that Akka helps its clients combat.

Today with more than 82% of revenues pro forma in mobility, we are working predominantly for clients from the automobile manufacturing sector (Powertrain, EMC), the aeronautic manufacturing sector (electrical controls, beams), trains (all wheel drive systems). These three axes represent our principle perspectives for diversification. As both leader and creator of Akka Technologies, what projects are of particular significance?

In the defense sector, we can see the example of our collaboration with Nexter, one of the major actors in the sector of land defense and with whom we have collaborated since 2009. They have benefited from our know-how in software development, proximity solutions for Bourges and Satory sites, from our capacity to carry out their projects with a dedication to results in a context that has put us into competition, forcing us to be innovative and competitive. This is the experience gained over the past 30 years that serves as a trampoline for developing new activities.

Moreover, Akka Technologies has positioned itself more and more in the domain of cybersecurity. This is an offer that we want to develop in the sectors where there are a high number of attack victims. This means protecting data but also protecting the production and management systems that can also be attacked by networks (nuclear power plants for example). Our most important clients in the defense sector are in the process of equipping themselves with an offer for state actors but also for civilian applications. We want to create an offer to accompany them on these subjects as well.

Finally, Akka hopes to position itself in the drone market. With our know-how, ambition, and collaboration with MBtech, we could become a strategic partner in this sector.