While the technology necessary to bring about the much-touted information autoroutes may be within reach, the market perspectives remain much less certain, says a recent report on the French market for teleservices, released by Thierry Breton, Groupe Bull’s director of strategy. Breton, who was responsible for a similar report last year for the French government on the market for teleworking, and a group of experts set out to determine the state of the market for value-added services that can be offered to enterprises and consumers over networks. They include industrial surveillance, information systems maintenance, distance learning, interactive television and tele-shopping. This market already exists. One can estimate its value in France at $6,000m, Breton said in a report in Le Monde. The predicted rate of growth ranges from 8.6% a year to 16%, which the report characterises as very encouraging, because it assumes a deliberate policy of developing such activities will have been established and certain cultural and institutional obstacles will have been overcome. Based on data from the Office of Information & Economic Forecasting, the National Institute of Statistics & Economic Studies, the Institute of Audiovisual & Telecommunications and Andersen Consulting, the report estimates the French teleservices market in the year 2000 will be worth between $12,000m and $18,300m. Five years later it should be worth as much as $36,000m. Breton’s group also comments that it is difficult to forecast any net growth in employment. The number of people earning their living from teleservices today is about 65,000, rising to 170,000 by 2005. But, the report notes, the spread of teleservices will also destroy traditional jobs. The report considers that the professional market for services will be more important than the consumer market. Today, consumer services on the information highway are worth about $3,000m, if one includes pay television, which should evolve towards video-on-demand and tele-shopping. In 2005, the most optimistic estimate of the consumer market for teleservices is $9,800m; that assumes an average yearly expenditure of $530m. It will be extremely difficult to move beyond that level, the report says. However, some professional teleservices have reached a certain level of maturity. They include facilities management and what the report calls the ‘most promising’ services – broking, reservation or payment systems. The report says the much-awaited explosion in teleservices, whether they be consumer or professional, depends on securing the payment for them. One of the essential requirements for an economy of teleservices is to have an efficient management of funds from the user to the service provider, the report says. Currently, services that will manage a large number of complex, related transactions spread out over space and time and will ensure the service provider’s payment are just getting off the ground, the report says. It is certainly one of the big axes of development for banks and financial organisations, Breton said. To help the teleservices market gain ground, the report suggests the government focusses on developing tele-working in the public sector and getting France Telecom to continue cutting its long-distance tariffs.
